Hymn to the Sea
by AP Stacey
Summary: Uber story. Isabelle Towers is a sailor with a fierce temper and dreams of earning an Officer's Commission, Doctor Anastacia Nizhardrie a survivor of the disasterous Russian-Japanese War of 1906. Their paths cross aboard the White Star Line's RMS Titanic.
1. Chapter I : Southampton

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :) _

_Chapter I : Southampton … _

The shuddering clang of a door as it crashed back against its frame echoed down the hallway, accompanied by the screech of badly-oiled hinges forced to close a little too quickly. The sound reverberated around the tiny cell, as surely as if a lump hammer had been taken to the cast iron bars that passed from floor to ceiling. The rhythmic tapping of shoe leather against the faded, lime-green tiles of the floor grew steadily louder until it came to an abrupt halt beyond the bars.

A series of bangs, thumps and the sound of metal scraping against metal broke the silence before the shoes turned on the floor with a squeak, heading back from whence they had came and slamming the door at the end of the hallway one final time for good measure. Blinking her eyes open Isabelle rolled over towards the bars, grimacing as the poor excuse for a mattress she lay upon compressed, forcing her ribs to push against the hard metal of the bed frame underneath.

Swinging her legs over the edge and sitting up, Isabelle tipped her head to the side and grimaced at the stiffness in her neck and back; kneading at the toughened muscles with a free hand as she pushed herself up to standing. Using the bars at the front of the cell for support, she leaned over the dented metal tray that balanced precariously on the shelf in front of the hatch. Her nostrils flared as she took in the familiar smell of cabbage and mashed potato, a grimace spreading across her tanned features.

Puffing her cheeks out with a long, frustrated sigh Isabelle pressed her knotted back against the cold brick wall opposite. Lowering herself to the concrete floor she took what comfort she could from the cooling affect it had on her flushed, grimy skin. A fingertip climbed her neck to press against the bruise she couldn't see but could certainly feel, spread across her temple. She grunted in pain, pulling her hand away and slapping it against the wall in irritation.

Isabelle shifted her shoulders awkwardly, her stained, sooty vest using the previous night's sweat to stick to her clammy flesh like a second skin. The bandages bound around her other hand and upper bicep had long lost the battle to stay white; stained progressively worse from cream to grey and darker still. She grimaced as her stomach twisted and grumbled loudly, demanding something more than regret and frustration to dine on.

Reluctantly she pushed herself up to her knees and shimmied forwards, pulling the tray from the ledge down onto her lap. Holding the dented metal mug up, towards the tiny window set high into the far wall and the minimal light it provided, Isabelle watched the particles of grit and whatever-else suspended in the water dance and twist in the brightness. Very reluctantly she brought the cup to her lips and tipped it back.

Wielding the fork like an offensive weapon, she stabbed at the mix of cabbage and potato and shovelled it up; chewing on a mouthful with all the enthusiasm of eating razor blades or bumble bees rather than mere vegetables. At least a condemned man got to choose what was for lunch before they juiced him.

She forgot the cabbage and lumpy potato instantly as a deafening, thunderous groan filled the air – a terrific howl that rattled the tray on her lap and seemed to bang and crash against the surrounding concrete; a rolling, palpable wall of noise that she could feel pushing against her grimy skin. Isabelle was off the floor and across the tiny cell in a single moment, jumping onto the tiny bed with enough force to make it groan and bow under the impact.

Reaching both arms up above her head she grasped the narrow bars securing the cell's tiny window, gritting her teeth as she strained to pull herself up. Biceps trembling with the effort, Isabelle pushed her head into the tiny gap, pressing her temple against the edge of the concrete window frame. A glimpse of the burning fury of the sun forced her to squeeze her eyes shut but other than the cellblock opposite, a few excited strangers hurrying below Isabelle's window and the barely-audible conversations of a thousand-strong crowd somewhere close by, there was nothing to see.

Lowering herself back down onto the mattress, she sighed in frustration. Eventually making her way to the tray she'd abandoned earlier, she pressed her back against the concrete and slid down the wall. Isabelle got no further than stabbing the mound of cabbage and potato still left when the door to the cell block crashed open, unexpectedly. Several sets of shoe leather competed to be heard this time, filling the cell with a maddening tap-tap-tap as they drew closer.

Isabelle craned her neck around to watch a lanky, painfully-thin guard draw a heavy baton from his belt and tap it menacingly against the cell's iron bars. "Step back," He warned with a tip of his head towards the bunk against the far wall. Plunging his free hand into his pocket he heaved a ring of dozens of keys up to the lock, frowning for a few seconds as he tried to place the right key from memory.

"It's probably the silver one," Isabelle offered helpfully with a wink as she sprawled out on the mattress and folded her arms behind her head. "That's quite enough of your lip!" The Guard muttered, doing as she suggested anyway and being rewarded with a dull click of the bolt retracting back into the lock.

Pushing the ring of keys back into his deep pockets and stepping into the cell, the end of the baton tapping in his spare palm, the Guard watched his charge carefully. "Isabelle Towers, is it then?"

"Depends on who wants to know," She drawled lackadaisically, staring up at the ceiling. The guard smirked, pushing the baton back into the loop of his belt and stepping aside from the door with an arm gestured out towards the bunk Isabelle lazed upon. "I'll tell you who bloody well wants to know!" A third voice boomed, stepping into the cell with shining silver buttons and a peaked, white cap crossed with the gold braids of authority.

Blue eyes stared unflinchingly towards Isabelle, her head snapping towards the impeccably-dressed newcomer as his voice crashed against her ears like the peals of a church bell. A bushy, half-moon moustache hid the sneer curling his top lip. "The Chief Engineer of the most fantastical ship to ever sail wants to bloody well know! Is that good enough, Towers? I can always get Captain Smith down here if you need the seniority; I'm only a Commander … "

Isabelle tried to scramble to her feet but got no further than slipping on the scratchy blanket, the back of her head banging against the concrete wall. Grunting with pain, she buried her elbows into the mattress and levered herself up and off the bed. Simultaneously rubbing the back of her head and trying to look like she was standing vaguely to attention, Isabelle watched one of the White Star Line's most senior engineering officers circle her like he was picking out the best-looking leper from a colony.

"Look at the state of you, Towers," He sighed with a shake of his head. He snatched the peaked cap from his head, scratching at the thick brown hair underneath. "You're supposed to be that filthy after you've finished in my engine room for the day – not before you've even bloody well reported for duty!"

Isabelle bit her tongue, not even being in a position to see the position she might then be able to talk from. Like a million dressing-downs from superiors the length and breadth of the civilised world, she was going to have to take all the Chief Engineer opposite could give … And Joseph G. Bell had a lot of steam to power his voice.

Digging into the folds of his waistcoat, the moustached officer opposite produced a heavy, gold-plated pocket watch on a length of glittering yellow chain. Snapping the face open to glance at the arms, he shook his head and offered a loud sigh towards Isabelle. "Fifteen minutes until anchor up," He announced expectantly, returning the pocket watch to the folds of his suit.

"I heard her clear her throat earlier," She nodded, recalling the screeching roar which had assaulted the ears earlier and motivated Isabelle to literally climb the walls, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the incredible sight she knew lay only a short distance away. Her head turned back from the window towards the engineer, trying to match the intensity that smouldered in his piercing blue eyes.

He folded his arms across his broad chest, eyes narrowing as he watched Isabelle carefully. "She's got a terrifically powerful voice on her, hasn't she? The greatest ship ever put together, ever conceived; perhaps the greatest piece of engineering in the history of all man-made and god-inspired things. She'll write an incredible legacy, make every newspaper from Southampton to Cape Town. Every corner of the Empire from India to New Zealand will know her name, remember it forever.

"She won't just carve the good name of the White Star Line into history … She'll write her own name on the tops of the bloody waves! No-one will forget the name Titanic, my dear. No-one."

Gritting her teeth at the mere mention of "Izzy", she still found herself nodding; found her mind filled with images of the incredible ship – possessing of a grace and delicacy which was somehow bolstered, rather than shattered by her brute power and enormous size; foreboding in the way it towered over even the warehouses lining the sides of the dock, while still being something to be admired rather than feared.

Something a person would never forget being a part of … Unless that person was Isabelle Towers. Anger boiled up inside her belly, twisting the gut and stoking the balling fists she hid behind her back. The rage was direction-less, like a ship at sea without a rudder and it swirled without a point or purpose. It simply pushed and prodded at her common sense, as it always did – goaded her good nature into submitting and lashing out. It stood able and willing to ruin so many things, as it had ruined this wonderful opportunity.

An opportunity to be a part of something so spectacular, so awe-inspiring, so ground breaking that it challenged the most religious of men to disbelieve in the capacity of mere men to create works of God.

Joseph blew his cheeks out, stirring the coarse brown hair of the moustache spread across his upper lip. "I'm not going to waste my time asking how you ended up in here, Towers. You've been a part of my engine room for a long time … How many ships now? The Adriatic, Zeeland and the Belgic … Probably more? We've been around the world a half-dozen times now, spent years working together and you still haven't grown up! You're still a silly little girl who can't control her temper!"

Isabelle snarled, Moving forwards before her common sense found itself, and reigned in her aggression at a single step closer. Joseph looked unimpressed, shaking his head slowly. "Do you know how hard I worked to bring you on-board Titanic? Have you any idea how many good sailors were knocked back? Good god Isabelle, full-blown Officers – men with gold stripes on their cuffs and commissions – were turned down for this ship! It took every ounce of the weight that comes with a position like Chief Engineer to make sure I got the engine room I wanted ..."

"And you can't let a drunken comment slide, or you can't just get up and leave when some lecherous dog makes some crass comment at your table … You can't turn the other cheek just once. You're not on a tramp steamer any more! Punch whomever your heart desires out cold, spend the cold nights at port-side cradling whatever gut rot it is you like to imbibe until you're three sheets to the wind … Feel free to ruin whatever future you might have, but do it when you're hauling mail or rubbish. You don't do it the night before the R.M.S. Titanic sails for New York!

"You know how life at sea works," Joseph grumbled with a flick of his palm. "It's all about who you know, not what you know. You want gold stripes on your cuff, Izzy? You want a commission, to be an Officer, to have the respect you crave and the responsibility I think you might just be about able to handle?

"Everything about you says no. Your mother's an angel, bless her all the way back to Ireland but there's no money in being a seamstress. The less said about your good-for-nothing father the better but sailing around the world with the stars-and-stripes flying from your bow, cavorting with whatever local riff-raff throw themselves at you in whatever foreign port you lash up your battleship is conduct unbecoming to an Officer … And one presumes a gentleman. When it comes to him, the two are certainly not mutually inclusive."

Frowning deeply, he tapped a finger against his lips. "Still one can't expect much from the Americans or their supposed Navy in that respect … Still new to the high seas and all that. Fact is Izzy you don't have the breeding, the training or the prestige to entitle you to a place at Officers' Candidate Schooling. That leaves you with one of two options …

"Give up, be content with stoking boilers or befriend some old, half-befuddled old fool who'll tolerate your nonsense and put his good name and reputation on the line for some headstrong, angry young woman who should have been cast aside in all good sense half a dozen times over."

Joseph cupped his chin with a hand, rubbing the freshly-shaved skin thoughtfully. "What's it to be, Towers? You can do what the world expects of you, what I now half-expect of you, and sit down on that bunk. I won't need to look far – not further than the side of that dock – for someone to replace you. I'll sail on to New York and you can sign on to the next tramp steamer heading out to Nova Scotia, once they let you out of here. Forget being an Officer, forget dreams of your own engine room … That would take hard work, sacrifice … Much easier to spend your nights drinking and punching out strangers, right?

"Or you could take the last chance, and I do mean very, very last chance I'm offering you. The chance to step through that door, work your way through a very large throng of people, climb up the aft gangway and find yourself a shovel. Once you've done that, find your way down to the engine room and bend your back to the task at hand; feeding the hungry boilers of my ship until they've had their fill and Southampton is a tiny grey dot on the horizon."

Isabelle sucked in a long lungful of air, as if she might cool the swirling tempest threatening to tip her from her feet as surely as any ship might list in a terrible storm. Dark brown eyes stared, almost burned into their opposite number as she struggled to keep her temper in check at the mention of her family, her upbringing, her father ... and the smile from her lips at the mention of friendship, of talent and dreams …

This man was equal parts infuriating and captivating. As if the oriental, eastern forces of Yin and Yang had found themselves in the desires to both drive her fist into the Engineer's temple and throw her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. She hesitated for a moment but all hope of turning him down, heading for Canada or whatever far-flung parts of the British Empire might best hide her failure and shame evaporated with the terrible, screeching din of Titanic's whistle.

It blasted once, twice and three times – a tuneless cacophony of raw power and majesty which could not be ignored by anyone … Least of all Isabelle Towers, Stoker 2nd Class.

Joseph's moustached lip curled upwards slightly as he read the decision in her eyes, not bothering to give her voice time to confirm it. "I would rather not miss the departure of my own ship," He announced dryly. Turning towards the jailer, he dipped his head respectfully. "Are we in order here, my good man?"

"Absolutely sir," He acquiesced, stepping away from the cell door and clearing a path through. The Chief Engineer of the R.M.S. Titanic stepped out of the cell, the tap-tap-tap of shining black shoes echoing against the worn wooden floor. "Quick as you like, Izzy!" Joseph shouted loudly as he marched towards the door that led out into the greater dockyards. "Best not to keep the White Star Line waiting!"

One hundred and fifty nine furnaces were stoked to life, each one a shining metal prison restraining raging, roaring fires which only grew on a fattening diet of the richest coal – piled high in great mountains of black rock, whose high peaks still did not reach above the enormous ship's waterline. One hundred and fifty nine burning furnaces fuelled twenty nine boilers containing the terrible pressures of the water, super-heated to a scalding steam that would scour the flesh from bone, were it somehow ever to find a way free of the endless maze of metal pipes and valves.

These miles of pipework carried the angry steam aft, forcing it to turn the ship's outboard propellers despite their great weight. Heavy lines were cast clear, as the shore surrendered its last tenuous hold on the Titanic and the great curved blades of the ship's engines, hidden deep beneath the cold blue of Southampton Docks, worked hard to push the great ocean liner towards New York.

Thousands cheered, waving their hands or their caps as they bid farewell to the greatest miracle of engineering ever conceived by the dreams of men and made real by their hands. Some had hammered the great rivets which now held Titanic's hull together, others had laid the carpets which complimented the incredible opulence and luxury of the ship's First Class facilities. Some had laid the hundred of miles of electrical cabling, while others still had installed the great cast-iron doors which divided the ship into five watertight compartments.

Many were the family of the hundreds of immigrants aboard the magnificent ship, waving off their dearly beloved or cherished child as he or she charted a bold course to the New World, a new start and a new life. Others still had no connection to Titanic other than to catch a glimpse of the incredible sight; to tell their beloved or their children or to wait for the day they had either, or both, of the time they had seen her set sail with their own eyes.

Regardless of the role they did or did not play in relation to the enormous ocean liner, they cheered together as one. They whooped and sang and danced merrily, as the Titanic fought and won its battle against the brooding seas. The waves crashed against her shining black hull, doing their very best to roll the ship one way or the other but the pride of the White Star Line would not be so easily upset.

Her enormous propellers span ever faster, fed by thirsty boilers and furnaces which drank and ate deeply of the labour of the men and women bending their back so painfully to the cause. She busied herself with the business at hand – to carry her two thousand, two hundred and twenty three souls across the vast, freezing waters of the North Atlantic in comfort, in peace and relative speed. For all her enormous, gigantic size the R.M.S. Titanic could not compete with the raw dimensions of the ocean and gradually, to those crowded about the docks at Southampton she seemed to shrink.

A thick pall of grey smoke hung lazily against the horizon, drifting up from where the ship's funnels disgorged the industry of the engines into the sky. Eventually even that dissipated on the four winds and the unforgettable ocean liner disappeared from view, smoke and all.

Still they cheered on the dockside, if only for a while longer.


	2. Chapter II : Take her to Sea, Mr Murdoch

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

* * *

_Chapter II : Take her to sea, Mister Murdoch …_

_

* * *

_

"Good evening, Ma'am," The pursuer greeted warmly, pushing the cream-coloured screen door open as he dipped his head, respectfully. The portly woman ignored him as she passed, not even bothering to make eye contact as she stepped onto the Promenade Deck and into the sunlight. Unhooking a delicate fabric parasol from her wrist, she pointed it towards the sky and blocked out the brightness that threatened to turn her skin a little darker than pasty-white.

The Pursuer took the slight in his stride, tugging at his cuffs to straighten the starched sleeves of his white shirt and picking a single hair from the soft red fabric of his waistcoat. Leaning over the threshold the Promenade Deck, his nostrils flared with the saltiness of the North Atlantic as he pulled the door closed again. The muffled thud of shoe leather against carpet brought another stranger up the staircase, this time garbed in a fine three-piece suit, sporting a top hat.

"Good evening, sir," The purser greeted just as warmly as before. This time he received an almost imperceptible nod from the gentleman, as he opened the screen door and watched the stranger step onto the deck and disappear from sight. The smile remained on his face until a third passenger turned the sharp corner leading down into the starboard-side First Class cabins, a concerned frown creasing his features.

"Pardon me for saying, Ma'am," He ventured with a bow of his head. "There's a frightful breeze this 'eve, perfect hat-weather if ever there was one. I'd be happy to run down to your cabin and fetch one, if it pleases you?"

The woman cocked her head to the side, the scar running above her raised brow creasing and flexing as it hugged the curve of her eye socket. "My name is Anastacia ..." She replied in a thick accent, as far removed from Belfast or Southampton as the Titanic now found herself from either of those two shores. " … And I do not have a hat."

The Purser's frown deepened, as if he he were unused to getting a spoken response to his presence, let alone as much conversation as a name. He placed his hands on his hips; "No hat, Miss Anastacia?" He scowled. "Well that's simply no good, isn't it? Whoever packed your luggage without a hat of all things, on a crossing by sea! I have half a mind to teach your house servants a thing or two about packing for the Lady of the House, I'll tell you!"

"I packed my own things," The blonde replied evenly. The Purser flashed a nervous smile, wringing his hands together as he struggled to find a suitably non-offensive, reassuring explanation. "First time to sea!" He settled on, almost triumphantly. "It's difficult to know what to bring, Miss Anastacia – I understand."

The tall woman said nothing for several moments, her lithe fingers locked together and held on the front of the dress she wore. Cobalt-blue eyes watched the Purser intently, to the point the large man began to fiddle with the shining gold buttons of his waistcoat. "I served in the Imperial Russian Navy.

" … I did not serve in the Mediterranean," She added, as if to put to bed any hope of the man opposite extracting himself from the knots he'd tied himself in. The Purser opened his mouth to say something – anything – to lessen the embarrassment, but settled on honour in silence. Stepping up to the top of the flight of stairs and leaning across, he opened the screen door wide.

"Enjoy your time on the Promenande, Ma'am," He managed sincerely enough. His eyes never ventured from the patch of wood panelling opposite, however, even as Anastacia pulled up the hem of her long, billowing dress and carefully negotiated the steps upwards. "Thank you," She offered stiffly as the Purser nodded his head. Feeling the breeze of the North Altantic flop and tug at his fringe, the portly man leaned over to pull the screen door closed.

His eyes wandered across the varnished, smoothed planks of the decking and up to focus on the blonde woman, as she walked away with a very noticeable limp in her step. "What a strange lady ..." He mumbled with a shake of his head, his musings interrupted by a polite cough from behind his back.

"Good evening Sir, Ma'am," The Purser enthused warmly, effortlessly slipping back into the job at hand. Steadying the screen door open against the strong breeze from the ocean beyond, he stepped back against the wall, watching the newest gentleman and his Lady climb the final few steps and onto the Promenade Deck without so much as a glance in his direction.

* * *

Anastacia's gaze didn't last long against the raw power of the Atlantic ocean, forced to first blink and then bring a palm up to shield her eyes, as the salty sting whipped up from the crashing, white-tipped waves so far below was carried up on a bitter wind. Couples clutching their top hats and bonnets, hurrying across the deck and flashes of blonde from hair pulled out of her own severe twist flashed across her vision.

Dark green, leather-gloved fingers wrapped around the handrail separating her from the drop of almost sixty feet to a tumulus ocean below. Cautiously at first, pushing against the metal as if she somehow expected the rail to come away like paper in the rain, Anastacia peaked her head over the side of the great ship and glanced down.

The sea was not easily parted and she fought savagely, furiously against the sharp bow of the White Star Line's greatest steamship. The waves – each five times the height of a man – rolled even higher and crashed and banged against the steel hull, desperately seeking a way in to fill the tremendous void passing well below the waterline. It was doubtful that the entire Atlantic Ocean, pooling its fury from Ireland to America; from Belfast to New York and back, held enough rage to slow Titanic with waves alone.

It would take much more to give this magnificent ship pause for thought.

Anastacia's fingers tightened around the handrail as she sucked in a lungful of salty, impossibly fresh air. Blowing her cheeks out and contributing what little she could to the winds as they howled across the promenade deck, her eyes were drawn left and she tipped her head to watch a young man – no more than eighteen years old – stride purposely onto the decking.

With one hand clamped firmly on top of a furiously flapping White Star Line bonnet, a length of rag held in his free hand he proceeded to hook an arm around the ship's railings. Securing himself awkwardly, he began to buff the metal furiously; a look of utter concentration written across his youthful face.

She watched this young man, his shoulders hunched with the cold, dutifully set about his work as if he intended to make his way around the entire Olympic-class liner single-handedly. Anastacia drew a strange comfort of sorts from watching him work, watching him following his orders and obeying instructions. Like the handrails she held which bolted securely to the decking, itself resting on the great steel sides of the ship's enormous hull, the sailor was a component of a greater whole.

With a rag in his hand, one man would accomplish nothing except to waste his time but as an army of men; stokers, pursers, officers, engineers, cooks and quartermasters they could keep a vessel as mighty as Titanic driving on through the great swells of the sea – a cog in the greater, wonderful ocean-going machine.

Anastacia's eyes fell away from the young man, onto the cloud of breath that escaped her pale lips with every lungful of air; billowing out and over the side of the ship. The cold permeated her dress and the petticoat worn over the top, chilling the flesh and freezing the muscle underneath until she could not help but surrender to a shiver.

She flexed the toes of her right foot inside her shoe, the unpleasantness of the shooting pains from stiff digits reminding her, at least, that the foot was still there. Her left leg gave no such pain – indeed it gave her no indication of being there below the knee, at all. Anastacia took a moment to glance to either side, making sure there was no-one to gawk at the show. The deck virtually cleared by the wintry Atlantic weather, she hitched up the hem of her dress above one leg.

Subconsciously Anastacia rubbed a gloved hand down beyond the knee, pressing against the tough, varnished wood where soft and pliant flesh should goose-bump under her touch. She twisted her waist, grimacing in discomfort as she felt the end of her body-proper grind against the cup supporting its replacement. Blue eyes found the young man still polishing a distance away, but her new-found comfort at the way he set about his job evaporated.

Anastacia pulled a glove from her hand, ignoring the icy touch of the wind as it stabbed against her palm. Running her fingers against the leg – or what replaced it – she frowned deeply. This performed a function, like the rag in the sailor's hand, opposite. This was better than a mere rag; crafted by the greatest workers of wood west of the Ural Mountains, designed by the greatest medical minds of the Russian Empire.

It was as perfect as any mere cog in a greater machine could be … But it didn't feel right. It had supported her, appearing for all intents and purposes save a small limp, normal for almost five years and yet … It felt no more a part of Anastacia than the four great funnels, arranged like enormous fins above her and towering over the ocean liner's superstructure, were.

She dropped the hem gathered up in her hands, hiding the leg beneath the ruffles of the dress. She pressed the entirety of her slight weight on it, desperately longing to feel something more than the tremendous pressure of scarred flesh pushing against a smooth, rubber cup. It didn't feel right; it didn't feel like part of her …

"'Scuse me Ma'am," The young man said awkwardly, still with a tight grip on his bonnet as the wind fought hard to prise it from his head. "Everythin' okay?"

Anastacia whipped her head around, a scowl passing over her alabaster features for the briefest moment before self-control smoothed her frown to impassiveness. "I am fine," She said simply. The young sailor hardly looked convinced, rummaging around in his pocket and producing a crushed handkerchief. "Please, use mine Ma'am," He suggest helpfully as he held it out in an open palm.

Anastacia winced as the she felt the cold of the wind bite on her cheek again, the breeze almost freezing a drop of seawater splashed up against her skin from the deck. Her finger came up to brush it away, pulling a second clear as it spilled over the edge of her eye – not from the sea below. She stared at the glistening tip of her forefinger, realisation dawning. Taking a step back her lips flexed, without the words to accompany them.

Snatching the proffered handkerchief from the young man's outstretched palm and turning on her heels, she made short work of the distance to the screen door leading back down below decks. The junior sailor, for his part, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head thoughtfully.

"What a strange Lady ..." He mumbled, drawing a rag from the folds of his coat pocket and returning his attention to the ship's handrails with a shrug of his shoulders.

* * *

Isabelle wiped the foam from the top of her lip as she brought the empty tankard down against the tabletop with a loud thud, a wide grin splitting her lips. The burly man opposite grimaced; his face blackened with coal dust, such that the only hint of the true colour of his flesh came from the fingers wrapped around the still half-full tankard, held limply in his tanned hands.

Setting it down on the table and giving Isabelle a hard stare for a few seconds, he reluctantly dug into the depths of his overalls, crashing a heavy hand's worth of coins onto the tabletop. "Pity you don't shovel coal near as quick as you shovel ale down your gullet!" He grumbled, crossing his sooty arms across a broad chest.

"Victory!" Isabelle shouted, clenching her fists and throwing her arms up into the air. "Anyone else feel up to the challenge? A fool and their money are soon parted by the fastest drinker in the White Star Line!"

The Stokers gathered around the table exchanged grumbles, mumbles, grins, gentle elbows and not-so-subtle digs to each others' guts. "C'mon!" Isabelle teased, gesturing to the small pile of treasure piled up in front of her and cradling her arms around it. "I'll put it all on the line! Who's going to be man enough?"

A few of the older hands – skin wrinkled with experience and more than few boiler scars – shook their heads and used an arm to hold back the youngsters from blowing every penny they'd taken with them and, with Isabelle's infamous "Double-or-nothing bonus try", probably every penny they'd make on the Titanic's maiden voyage too. Shrugging and gathering the pile of coins and other sundries, she rose from her chair, a little unsteadily for all the ale drunk in defence of her dubious crown.

"For all you newbies!" She called out gleefully, "If I'm sitting at this table, I'm defending my crown and you're always welcome to step up!"

Isabelle snapped off a mock salute at the various amused and annoyed faces filtering out through the doorway, throwing her arm back with enough force afterwards to upend the chair she'd sat on and send it crashing to the deck. "Whoops!" She giggled, shrugging her shoulders towards the bartender who rolled his eyes.

"Barkeep!" Isabelle shouted cheerfully, banging her tankard down in front of the middle-aged man. "Another drink to celebrate my genius!"

Lifting the tankard up and wiping underneath it with a scowl, the Barman wrung out the cloth over a small sink in the corner. Tipping the rim of the thirsty jug up to meet the tap, he quickly poured out a pint's worth of foaming, nut-brown ale. Although Isabelle could not have been without the tankard for more than a minute, she still found the time to puff her cheeks out, sigh and prop her head up with an arm leaning against the bar as she waited for her "celebratory" drink.

"Don't try to break any records with this," The Barkeep warned with a yet another roll of his eyes as he set the tankard down beside Isabelle, "It's your last one tonight."

Offering the older man a lopsided grin, Isabelle shrugged her shoulders and brought the ale to her lips. Taking a long gulp and setting it back down onto the bar with enough force to splash foam over the rim, she turned her attentions back to the winnings still piled atop her table. Ignoring the irritated sigh of the Barkeep as he wiped underneath the tankard again, Isabelle filled the pockets of her coat with a veritable trove of treasure

Pockets soon filled to bursting with the table not yet cleared, the buzz from more than a few pints beginning to make her arms and legs feel impossibly light and airy, Isabelle squeezed her eyes closed – blinking away the giddiness and trying to focus on her prizes. Settling for the bottle of rum sitting proudly in the centre of a dozen coins and tucking it underneath her arm, she spun around and deftly rescued her tankard from the bar.

"I'll take my leave, kind sir!" She giggled bowing deeply, if unsteadily and managing to slosh yet more ale out of the tankard and onto the decking. "Your tip is on the table!"

Peering around Isabelle, the Barkeep's forehead creased in a frown. "Awful big tip," He shrugged, flipping a cloth over his shoulder. "Sure you can afford it?"

"It's not about the money!" Isabelle chastised with a wag of her finger, taking another long sip from the tankard in her hand as she made her way – heavily loaded with plunder – towards the doorway. "It's about the taking part!"

Shrugging his shoulders and making short work of the distance from behind the bar to the table, the middle-aged man pulled the cloth from his shoulder, brushing the coins over the table's edge and into his palm with a free hand. "The hell it is ..." He grumbled loudly, shaking his head as he watched his last customer for the night stagger out into the corridor. " … Bloody Stokers."

* * *

Smiling as brightly as any of the hungry boilers she'd spent hours feeding down in the bowels of the Titanic, Isabelle extended her arms and span on the spot, filling her lungs with the dozen mingling smells of a ship under way at sea. Metal polish applied to the ship's myriad shining pieces; the waft of expensive perfume still lingering from the ship's wealthiest guests; the acrid tang of burnt coal and soot from her own scorched, blackened overalls and of course the salt on the air – oblivious to those wrapped in fine furs and overcoats so far below decks, but easy to sniff on the wind to an old hand.

Enthusiasm and alcohol getting the better of her sense of balance, Isabelle took an awkward step back; pressing her shoulders against the bulkhead and resting her head against the varnished wooden panelling. For all the stiffness in her joints born from hours of back-breaking shovelling, all the frustration bred from a job that never came close to being fulfilling or easy enough to lose herself in the monotony, a belly full of ale seemed to paint the world a brighter colour. Bringing the dented tankard up to her lips, she pushed herself off the wall and around the corner.

Isabelle's eyes were far too slow and far too focused on her drink to see the obstacle in her way, while her conscious mind was still too busy considering the smells of the ship to provide any warning. Her subconscious duly registered the terrific thud of a body against hers and she back-pedalled furiously, instinctually, but succeeded only in stumbling and falling backwards down to the deck and landing on her rear unceremoniously. The bottle of rum, won so honestly earlier, slipped from Isabelle's grasp as her elbow banged against the decking, spinning away across the carpet behind.

Tipped forwards, squeezed between two bosoms and then flung away in surprise the tankard clattered to the carpeted steel below, rolling in a lazy circle away from its owner. Groaning as she cradled her gut, Isabelle pushed herself up with an elbow and coughed a few dregs of ale back onto the decking. "Sorry ..." She mumbled, shaking her head to clear the fog. Her eyes drifted across the decking to a pale woman sprawled on the floor opposite; propped up against the wall, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

Scrambling up to her knees, Isabelle crawled across the deck until her gaze fell across the stranger's shoes and forced her to a stop. The stranger wore a pair of heels coloured a dark green but they were not together in a pair, as they should be. One peeked out from underneath the hem of her long dress as it should, but the other was entirely separated – lying uselessly on the end of a disconnected, wooden replacement.

Hesitantly, Isabelle reached out for the prosthetic when a thick accent pierced the silence of the corridor, drowning out the thrum of the Titanic's mighty steam engines many decks below. "Do not touch it!" The stranger practically bellowed, pushing herself off the wall despite the obvious pain it caused. She scrambled across the decking, throwing a slender arm out and desperately hauling the heavy wooden limb with her as she back-tracked, putting even more distance between the two women.

"Sorry ..." Isabelle mumbled again, feeling her throat grow dry and scratchy as her fogged mind struggled to come up with any other words. Perhaps it was the ale, or curiosity or a mixture of both – the former liberating the latter – but she could not help herself in examining the other woman. Her flesh was alabaster, pale without being translucent as if spent under a weak sun too high in the sky or hidden behind too many clouds on too many days.

The stranger's pale skin was twisted in places, however – raised scar tissue coloured a darker orange, running underneath one side of her jawbone and snaking around the outline of the orbital socket on the opposite side of her face. Realising several moments of absolute silence had passed, Isabelle blinked away the stare, curiosity giving way to nerves as she became acutely aware of the awkwardness and the stranger's obvious discomfort.

"Please leave ..." The woman asked evenly, leaving little room to interpret it as a request. Isabelle hesitated, feeling there was more to apologise for if only the ale could be flushed from her mind as easily as it had entered. "Sorry ..." She repeated mindlessly for the third time. Climbing to her feet, she extended a hand to help the woman up before realising the absurdity, pulling it back to her side and instead stooping over to retrieve her tankard still rolling around the deck.

The stranger made no effort to do much of anything, let alone leave her impromptu seat on the decking. "Get out of here!" She hissed suddenly, eyes narrowed and face twisting to form a snarl. "I do not need your help, or your pity!"

Temper being quicker to rise than sympathy or indeed, pity, Isabelle's face soon darkened to match the woman opposite. Clenching her fists, she opened her mouth to spit back a return volley but held fast at the last second; not quite drunk enough to turn an accident outside the mess into a night in the Brig at the pleasure of the Master-At-Arms.

Turning on the spot and stepping forward, her boot tapped against the bottle of rum still lying intact and no worse-for-wear on the decking. Scooping it up into the crook of her elbow Isabelle marched back around the corner, teeth grinding together in irritation as she squeezed the bottle against her side.

She needed a drink anyway.


	3. Chapter III : Dreams of Tsushima

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

_Notes : Anastacia's history, as mostly detailed in this Chapter, is heavily drawn from the Russian-Japanese War of 1905-06. I researched the topic extensively and hopefully, all details mentioned regarding it are accurate._

* * *

_Chapter III : Dreams of Tsushima …_

* * *

A thick carpet of cloud rolled across the night sky to block out the stars, leaving an inky blackness such that Anastacia could tell she was at sea only by the gentle rocking of the hull beneath her feet as it cut a path through the Tsushima Strait. Without the glare or the shine of the ship's lights, even the waves lapping and rolling below, were invisible. The battleship Borodino, bristling with weapons capable of reducing ships of equal size and armament to molten slag on the seas, mobile projection of the Tsar's naval power, quietly crept past the enemy's own doorstep – quite at odds with the open battles it had designed to fight.

Almost invisible along an utterly invisible horizon, a mix of other battleships, cruisers and destroyers making up the Second Pacific Squadron of the Imperial Navy made their way towards the besieged Russian Far East. Only a short distance west the sophisticated, disciplined troops of the Japanese Army had not only landed but inflicted stinging losses and terrible casualties on defending forces.

The Russian Empire's defeat was near and only a decisive naval victory could do anything to prevent it.

Anastacia strained her eyes to pick out something – anything – in the gloomy blackness of the foggy, cloudy night. So close to the Japanese home islands, it was vital for the squadron to pass unseen and so each ship made sure not a single light could be seen beyond the hull; a torch or lantern that might then possibly act as a signal or confirmation that the seas were anything but empty.

Long tresses were gathered up by the eastern winds and whipped about her features – hair hardly cut in the mammoth four-month journey by which her ship had ponderously circumnavigated a great chunk of the seas to make for Vladivostok. Gathering her collar about her chin, she stamped her feet against the decking in a vain effort to restore the feeling in her cold toes.

"You make too much noise!" A voice hissed urgently, as she turned around to see a wide smile on the face of a young man that did not match up to the seriousness of the words. Anastacia's lips curled upwards as she shrugged her shoulders, accepting one of the two steaming tin cups held in his grimy hands. "Have you seen any Japanese yet?"

Anastacia frowned, the flawless porcelain flesh of her forehead crumpling. "Do you think they are out there?" She asked half-towards the man, half-towards the sea itself. "They would not surely let us pass so freely to attack their countrymen?"

"Difficult to say, Anna," The young man shrugged, sipping from the cup with a wince as the hot tea burned against his tongue. "Now is the time of tactics and shells and wireless battle plans … Fighting on the seas is not as simple as it once was, yes? We make good time, though – excellent time. Vladivostok by tomorrow if our luck holds out …"

She nodded, taking a sip from her own cup and feeling the heat of the sweet tea warm her belly. Anastacia pressed her fingers against the warm metal, earning a chuckle from the sailor opposite. "Is good to see you drinking something and not spitting it into sea right away. I think you might have sea legs at last!"

"I have had four months to practice," She smiled, although a part of her felt a pride in having finally been able to enjoy more than crackers, cheese and what little else stayed down. The young man laughed again, tipping back his cup and taking a long gulp.

"Is no good for a doctor to be ill!" He mocked with a smile, "Not encouraging for men to see you turning green! Still, you are better now – this is a lucky ship!"

Returning the smile, Anastacia turned her head back towards the blackness of the night and the sea, her eyes narrowing as she made out a single speck of light some distance away. Without a horizon to judge the light against, it was impossible to tell even how far up it was or even whether it shone in the sky or the sea. "Perhaps that is our lucky star ..." She offered, pointing out over the rails.

The sailor opened his mouth to reply but Anastacia never heard his words; never heard the sound of the deck below her cold feet shuddering and bending under a colossal and terrible force. She heard instead only the most awful roar – an all-consuming crescendo of power, as if two cymbals had been brought together either side of her head to ring all sense from her mind. Without the sound to accompany the eyes, she staggered backwards in silence as the ship itself seemed to twist away.

While Anastacia saw well enough, she could not comprehend the images before her. Shards of metal ripped from wherever they had once bolted together dropped from what seemed the sky itself, bouncing against the soft fabric of her coat and rolling over onto the decking. Support beams fully twice the thickness of her own body first bent, then twisted and finally sheared fully in half – their enormous weight turned from burden to reckless danger as they crashed through the deck, coughing up great clouds of pulverised splinters.

Shielding her eyes, Anastaca did not see whatever brought the next terrible shudder but felt it keenly as her centre of gravity span away. Falling to the decking hard, she rolled into her back and winced in pain – blinking away the stars to finally see that the metal still pattering onto the deck like rain did not fall from the sky, but the superstructure of the Borodino herself.

The battleship's funnels were painted bright yellow and orange by the flames that now licked up their sides, bubbling the paint into a thick, viscous ooze and warping the metal beneath. Cables and gantries sagged, tugging at the points where they met the superstructure until it all became too much and they wrenched free from their joints to crash down upon the decking. Some bindings were too strong but instead of resisting, they simple helped the destruction along – masts untouched by the fire or initial impacts bent and finally sent crashing over by the weight of their lines alone.

The terrific roar gradually receded, replaced by a high-pitched and incessant whine as her battered eardrums substituted the vibrant sounds of life for a broken-record, repetitive whistle. Anastacia grimaced as she felt something hot and slick roll down her cheek, roughly wiping her hand across her features and staining the skin of her palm crimson.

A desperate, grimy hand wrapped itself around the collar of her jacket, shaking Anastacia violently and gathering her frayed wits together. Blinking away the confusion, she looked up into the bloodied face of the young sailor whose face had been split with a wide smile only a few moments before. A deep cut ran the length of his temple, forcing an eye closed shut with the clotting blood as he vainly tried to staunch the flow with his bonnet.

Deep lines of worry ran across his skin as his lips moved urgently but silently, whatever words he might have spoken utterly lost to the tinnitus that had deafened Anastacia so completely. Another terrible shudder took hold of the battleship, shaking her so hard that she might well have come apart at the bulkheads were she designed for anything save war. Somewhere nearby, close enough that she could feel the tinge of heat on her cheeks, a flash of light lifted nightfall's veil for the briefest moment.

The young sailor stooping over her grimaced in pain, arching his back and groping for something behind him. His teeth ground together, eyes squeezed shut as he contorted, desperately reaching and twisting. His movements gradually grew less frantic, less coordinated and eventually his arms dropped to their sides. His head lolled, eyelids growing heavy until eventually he simply fell forwards – crashing to the deck without any effort to soften the fall.

Anastacia rolled onto her stomach, pulling herself along the deck and towards the fallen sailor. Reaching out, her hand found cold, hard metal where it should have felt flesh. Sunk deep into his back a serrated, twisted piece of blackened metal stood proudly upwards like a fin and for a moment, she hesitated as if there might be a chance to pull the metal free and undo the damage it had done.

Pressing two fingers against his still-warm neck, she could find no pulse.

Head still bowed towards the deck, Anastacia was dimly aware of boots stumbling into the periphery of her vision. Glancing up she saw a face streaked with soot, dust, blood and panic. His eyes wide the Officer – only recognisable by the epaulettes on his shoulders – sank to his knees in front of her, lips moving rapidly in words she could not hear above the endless whistling that had replaced all sound. She did not need to hear him however, to know he pleaded and begged for help; cradling a useless, clearly-broken arm in his lap.

Anastacia couldn't remember anything; how to dress the wound, how to set the bone, how to go about doing something for the pain; the entirety of her knowledge, so hard-earned and dutifully gathered over years seemed to retreat into the numbing amnesia slowly spreading through her mind. Why she was on this ship, why they sailed, every facet of her life diluted until it could tell her nothing; as tasteless and clear as the water beneath the hull.

Suddenly she felt trapped, as if she were below-decks and the bulkheads themselves were moving in. The stranger continued to talk but she could not hear the words anyway, so she ignored them. A cold sheen of sweat spread across her pale forehead, heart beginning to crash against the prison of her ribs, lungs demanding ever-more oxygen until her chest heaved with exertion.

The shock of whatever was happening began to ease away to be replaced by something horrendously familiar – fear. A creeping dread climbed from the pit of her stomach up, to make her arms and legs ache with the need to take flight somewhere, anywhere. Anastacia blinked away the tears turning her eyes hot and angry, twisting her face away as she sucked in a great lungful of air. Another shudder threw her off-balance and she fell to the decking, striking her temple against the panelling as unsteady gasps gave way to heaving sobs.

When Anastacia picked herself back up, sluggish and sore, the stranger was nowhere to be seen.

She had never laid eyes on the Japanese warships which fired shell after shell into the Borodino, but nonetheless the shells found their mark. Anastacia never saw where they fell; bursting open the hull beneath the waterline and exploding in-amongst men gathered in the messhalls, and yet the ship took on thousands of gallons of water while sailors were shredded to red ribbons by razor-sharp shrapnel. Neither did she know the Imperial Russian Navy Battleship had taken all it could hope to take, but this did not stop what followed or make it any more blissful for the ignorance.

Her ears still ringing with nothing but tinnitus, Anastacia only felt the heat of the detonation as the Borodino's magazine stores were penetrated and ignited. She felt the entire hull forced downwards further into the water, as the ship's superstructure simply exploded up and into the sky. Burning metal, adopting new and impossible shapes as it melted was catapulted up and into the night, sending columns of steam coiling up from the sea wherever debris landed.

A moment later the hull itself was ripped open, from the barnacle-encrusted bottom to the railings guarding the top. Seizing the chance the entirety of the Strait of Tsushima poured through the breach; flooding decks and dragging the starboard side of the ship down. Another horrific shudder rumbled from deep within the bowels of the battleship as seawater met the super-heated steam from the boilers and reacted explosively.

Anastacia rolled to her side a moment before the patch of decking she had laid on previously exploded up and out, raining shattered beams and splinters out over the sides. A great gout of hissing steam lanced through the breach, dissipating into the cold night air and leaving behind a crude tunnel by which the sea trapped in the hull could find a way back out and over the top. Feeling herself beginning to slide with the listing ship, Anastacia scratched her fingertips along the decking as she began to fall.

Her skin cut and drew red smears as she clawed at something to arrest her fall. The list increased until the ship could resist the laws of the sea and physics no more, capsizing with a spectacular crash of foamy-white waves and billowing spray. The water cut deeper than any blade, a terrible cold dagger that sapped the strength and dragged the weak beneath the waves to an unmarked grave.

She splashed desperately, coughing mouthfuls of salt water back into the sea as she fought desperately to keep her chin tipped back. Her coat was flung off, saturated and dragged down giving the cold a chance to work against her skin with nothing more formidable than a cotton shirt and trousers to breach. Anastacia was dimly aware of fire on the sea, as burning chunks of metal, wood and rubber continued to rain down or simply float as miniature pyres.

She could see other heads bobbing madly, arms waving in desperation but she could not hear them – could not hear their terror, their wailing horror. They would all drown in the Straits of Tsushima tonight.

Anastacia bolted upright, a tortured cry escaping her lips as her mind struggled to reconnect with the body it had drifted away from during the wee small hours. She squeezed her eyes open and shut, trying to make sense of her surroundings, palm rubbing at the sweat which made her forehead and chest slick. Slowly realisation dawned that while she was still at sea, the ship she sailed on was continuing to make good time for New York City and the New World. There were no shells to puncture her massive steel hull, and there would be no Japanese threat here in the home waters of the Royal Navy.

Swinging her single leg over the side of the bed, Anastacia leant over and groped around the floor for the heavy wooden prosthetic. Grunting with the effort of lifting it onto the mattress, she straightened the multitude of leather straps attached to the sides and carefully pushed the remains of her knee into its saucer-shaped top. Pulling the buckles tight she carefully rolled onto her stomach and awkwardly, breathing heavily with the effort and the aide of the headboard, pushed herself up and to standing.

Limping to the dresser, Anastacia pulled the stopper on the crystal decanter clear with a soft pop and tipped it over – filling a tumbler with a sticky, amber sweetness. Snatching the glass up, she brought the scotch to her lips and drank it dry in a single, greedy gulp.

It was strange that one could forget things in dreams that a person could never forget while awake. Anastacia had dreamed of that same night aboard the Bordino virtually every night, re-lived the smell of burning metal, the ringing of her ears as the ship broke apart under the torrent of shells fired from so far away that the enemy was never close enough to be seen with the naked eye. She remembered doing nothing to help, nothing to aide her comrades but simply sitting and waiting to be helped herself.

Every detail as real and as vivid as if she were falling into the sea again, struggling to keep her nose above the water, drowning …

And yet while she dreamed, she always forgot his name. He was without one, as he handed over a tin mug of steaming tea. He was a reassuring smile, but nothing more, as they discussed the war and the danger of sailing so close to the enemy's lair and then … He was a corpse on the decking, back broken and lifeless.

"Petr ..." She sighed softly, clutching the glass to her stomach as she felt the familiar hotness scratch at the back of her eyes. "Your name was Petr ..."

* * *

The RMS Titanic was a gleaming sculpture of human perfection – varnished decking stretching for hundreds of feet, shining brightly under the weak Atlantic sun; polished brass, silver gold and other precious metals plating mahogany, oak and teak; watercolours and pastels in tasteful frames hanging above vast grand pianos and below multi-tier, crystal chandeliers. She was as much a labour of love as a labour of engineering but away from her passenger cabins, far below decks where bands did not play and gentleman did not gather to smoke fine cigars and trade war stories, there existed a very different world.

This was a world of raw industry, where none of the trappings of luxury were allowed. A world of rivets, pumps, pistons, gears, steam, coal, grime and back-breaking labour. A world where enormous power was harnessed in order to drive the great shafts turning the ship's colossal propellers, pushing the floating city ever-closer to its berth in New York City.

Isabelle grunted with the effort of ramming the shovel into the raging mouth of the boiler, twisting the shaft and dumping the small mountain of coal balanced on the end into the terrific heat and flame. A thick cloud of acrid smoke belched out from the open grill, the fire inside the boiler doubling in its ferocity as it quickly fed; sating its hunger for only a few moments.

Twisting her back, Isabelle wiped at her brow and smeared a line of soot across her forehead. Craning her neck up she took in the enormous mountain of coal, one of dozens rising up in front of their respective boilers, easily to the height of ten men tall. Kicking at a chunk of the black rock and sending it skittering across the steel decking, Isabelle bent her back to the task once again but got no further than digging the face of the shovel into the mountainside, when an obnoxiously loud voice interrupted.

"Maybe you don't understand what's happenin' here!" A sooty face grinned, wrinkled with age, flesh tanned with more than a few decades in the warm glow of an engine room. "You're 'sposed to keep these boilers burnin', Izzy. Gotta' be funnellin' the black stuff in quicker than that – look at it!"

The old man stepped closer to the boiler, oblivious to the eye-watering heat at such a distance. He thumbed towards the open grill, shaking his head in mock-disappointment. "Just a tiddler', that one … Could put it out with a bit of spit, so I could."

Rolling her eyes, Isabelle ignored the old man for the few moments it took her to get a good pile of coal on the end of her shovel, swing it around and ram it into the boiler's gaping, cast-iron maw. "Thanks Eamon ..." She nodded, puffing her cheeks out and blowing a stray strand of hair up and away from her features. "Good advice – great advice. I can see how you made Chief Stoker with that sort of insight."

He barked a short laugh, slapping hand against her back. "Always a clever word on yer' tongue … Still, heard what you were getting' up to with the young pups in the mess."

It took all of Isabelle's limited self-control to suppress the urge to give herself away immediately. "Oh?" She replied, as nonchalantly as possible and continuing about the business of feeding the boiler. Eamon's grin widened as he folded his arms across his chest, "Sharp tongue you might have, Izzy, but I can read you like a children's book! Takin' all those young, impressionable-type sailors to the cleaners; shame on you!"

He leaned in, voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper; "How much'd you get, anyways?"

"Best ever haul," She replied with a wink and a grin. Eamon nodded approvingly, rattling his teeth together as he took a moment to ponder. "That'll still put you well below me, but you're welcome to try again if you like. What'd you say … Quadruple-or-nothing?"

While Isabelle might be the justified Ship's Champion of Ale, taking any challenges and capable of drinking any and all under the table, the deck and the waterline, she was not the greatest ever aboard Titanic. That honour went to Head Fireman, Eamon Shamus – an old County Mayo lad who might as well have been a bulkhead for all the way alcohol affected him. Seniority does not fit well with drinking games and when he became Chief Stoker, Eamon retired from the ale-drinking circuit.

His record had irked Isabelle in a playful way, the two having served together more than once before coming together on Titanic. The biggest threat on long voyages, sometimes taking weeks by tramp steamer was not in fact the sea itself but boredom. Anything that could help alleviate that, to take attention away from the cramped conditions or the hard work was always welcome.

The hangover from the morning after the night before was not always so welcome.

And so Isabelle had tried three times to take Eamon's "title". Three times she'd been drunk under the table – twice on Adriatic, once on a visit to Titanic's sister ship Olympic – banging her head against the edge on the last attempt and requiring a trip to the infirmary. At the rate of failure, Eamon was surely close to buying a second house back in Ireland with the winnings he'd plundered from her.

"Maybe later," Isabelle said finally, relying on her common sense for once in a blue moon. "I'm not too keen on helping you on your way to owning the county, anyway."

"I heard about your little drinking games," A third voice announced coldly, without any of the warmth or friendliness the pair had been sharing. Isabelle sighed, recognising the high-pitched words, delivered in the King's English, instantly. Eamon's face darkened, indicating he'd made the connection too.

"Just keeping informed of ship's goings-on, Lieutenant," The Old Man tried valiantly, to which the officer was having none. "Dismissed Shamus," He barked, leaving Eamon with nothing to do but nod, turn his back and walk away.

Second Engineering Officer Lieutenant Daniel Crawford was a painfully thin man, with a frame that made even the smallest-fitting clothes seem several sizes too big. His features were sunken, tight as if the flesh over his skull was pulled too tightly. Dark brown eyes stare balefully out from above a hooked nose, more like a vulture's beak which was itself perched above a wiry moustache trimmed exactly to regulations by the single-hair.

An easily dislikeable man, Crawford had what was probably likely to be an uninspiring career in the Royal Navy cut dramatically short, for reasons no-one on the ship save himself (and perhaps the Captain of Titanic herself) knew – almost entirely because the Lieutenant's unpopularity outweighed the interest in learning the story that brought Crawford to the White Star Line. A product of one of the most expensive – and therefore best – private schools in England, he stood as one of the very worst examples of an Englishman; arrogant, condescending and with an outlook on the world that bordered on the racist.

It was no secret of his thoughts on those who did not share his privileged, "English" upbringing. It was also no secret of what he thought of a "mongrel" like Isabelle, born out of wedlock to an Irish seamstress and an American sailor. Combined with Crawford's desire to see the White Star Line run not unlike the Navy, perhaps making up for whatever shortfall saw him booted out, it was not difficult to see why so many found him objectionable.

"You're not on some tramp steamer hauling bananas from British Honduras," He hissed with a pointed, leather-gloved finger. "This is the greatest ship ever to set sail! Do you have any comprehension for how privileged you are to crew her? Obviously not, because you're busy drinking yourself into stupors and indulging in illegal gambling on-board. I've about had my fill of you, Towers – you might have this ship's Chief Engineer wrapped around your little finger, but I'm not so easy to circumvent."

His eyes narrowed, finger still pointing furiously. "As far as I'm concerned, Towers, you shouldn't even be on Titanic. I know what you got up to dockside the night before we left Southampton – putting two men in hospital and earning yourself a bed in the local jail house like some potato-thieving commoner from County Donegal …"

Isabelle's rage threatened to boil over all self-control and instinctively, without any real thought, she stepped forward, teeth bared and fists balling. Caught off-guard Crawford backed away, a flash of fear passing over his features before professional arrogance stepped in to remind him he was shirking away from a common, enlisted sailor.

"Take a swing, Towers!" He challenged, voice dripping with all the smug self-assurance of a man with just enough authority to take her to task if she did. "I'll have you out of my engine room so fast you're feet won't scratch my deck-plating!"

With a supreme effort of will, Isabelle managed to step back, chin jutting out defiantly as she took a deep breath and relaxed her tensed shoulders. The Lieutenant cocked his head to the side, either believing the epaulettes on his shoulders granted him magical powers of invulnerability, or simply gambling on Isabelle's desire to avoid spending any time at the Master-at-Arm's pleasure.

"You don't like me, do you Towers?" He asked, tugging on the folds of his duty jacket – worn in an engine room with all the appropriateness of choosing a three-piece suit to go swimming. "It's okay though, because I know why you don't ..."

Isabelle sorely doubted Crawford could find the words to capture what was so painfully close to the tip of her tongue. The Lieutenant folded his hands behind his back, as if he were conducting a line inspection with a row of brand-new cadets and not a sailor with probably double his maritime experience. He tapped a gloved hand against his shoulders and then against the peaked service cap he wore on his head.

"You don't like what I've achieved; you don't like the fact I carry the King's Commission, you don't like my command authority and you don't like the way I carry myself – with respect, with good character and good judgement. I don't get into bar fights, I don't smash bottles over common heads and then end up letting down my ship and crew. I've heard your gibberish about where you think you could be ..."

Crawford sneered, a sarcastic smile spread across his thin face. "You'll never earn a commission, because an officer requires more than knowing which end of a spanner to hold. An officer requires sound reasoning, a cool head, good and strong breeding …

"You don't have any of those things, Towers," He laughed. "Maybe your father might've taught you something useful, if he hadn't up and left the family hut for the other side of the world. Not that I should be surprised I suppose, you can always count on an American to disappear when there's a fight at hand or some hard work to be done. You'll be lucky not to be dumped on Pier Fifty Nine the moment we drop anchor in New York, find your own way back on a tramp steamer-"

Whatever insults were still to come were abruptly silenced by Isabelle's fist as she stepped forward and delivered a hard uppercut to Crawford's jaw, snapping his head back. The Lieutenant staggered back, grunting in pain as he cupped his mouth and doubled over. Wringing the stiffness from her wrist, temper somewhat sated at the risk of her career destroyed, Isabelle was caught off-balance by the wiry man as he gathered his wits, stepped forward and threw out an unwieldy arm.

Doing her best to duck the clumsy blow she was nonetheless off-balance and fell away to the side – throwing her arm out soften the fall as she slumped against the side of a steam pipe. Isabelle's instincts took over as her flesh pressed against the super-heated metal, searing the skin and forcing her to roll onto the decking with a cry of pain. Clutching her burned bicep Isabelle climbed to her feet, a snarl on her lips as she stalked towards Crawford who began to back peddle, frantically.

"That is enough!" a voice boomed, rising above the roar of the furnaces to bring both the Lieutenant and Isabelle to a halt immediately. Turning her head with a rising feeling of doom, she laid eyes on the furious features of the true owner of the engine room; Chief Engineer Joseph G. Bell and all of his very terrible temper. Cheeks flushed purple, lips trembling beneath a bristling moustache that did little to hide the frown lines marring the man's face, he stalked forwards.

"Thank goodness you're here sir," Crawford half-grunted, nasally. "This sailor assaulted me!"

Joseph stalked straight past the Lieutenant, coming to a halt before Isabelle who did her best to stand at attention, trying to ignore the terrible pain radiating from the patch of scarlet-red flesh she nursed. The rage was still very much evident but the storm of words she expected never came.

"Get to the infirmary and have that fixed," He ordered gruffly. "You're no use in my engine room with one arm."

"Sir!" Crawford whined, "Shall I fetch the Master-at-Arms?"

Joseph turned on his heels, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Unless it's for the purpose of asking him to take you out of here I'd say you'd best concentrate on running this engine room, boy. You're not paid by the Royal Navy – you're paid by the White Star Line and you'd do well to remember it. Sort your attitude out, or else you might find yourself with cuffs minus the gold braid and a shovel in your hand."

"Yes sir ..." He replied falteringly, nursing his jaw and slinking off between the nearest boilers. Casting his eyes around, Joseph found the stares of several stokers who'd stopped feeding the ship's hungry boilers to enjoy ringside seats to an impromptu boxing match. "Have we dropped anchor in New York already?" He roared, voice once again climbing above the machinery. "Put your backs into it or I'll shovel you into those boilers myself!"

* * *

Titanic's Chief Surgeon William O'Loughlin was no stranger to the seas, having spent almost forty years in the service of steamers and liners plying the world over. At over sixty years of age his frame had become somewhat portly, gut straining a little against his uniform. Though age had begun to soften the body, his mind remained acute and he'd arrived on-board from another ship no less grand or mighty – Titanic's sister, Olympic. His reputation amongst the officers was as remarkable as the bright white, handlebar-moustache that dominated his round face.

Gritting her teeth in pain as she swung inside the doorway to the infirmary, Isabelle could see no such famous facial hair; only a bored-looking orderly, folding bedsheets into a pile and pushing them roughly into a locker. "Doc's out," He barked, not bothering to glance her way as he continued with his folding.

"Whatever," Isabelle snapped irritably, jumping up onto the nearest bed and hissing in pain as the blistered flesh of her bicep stretched, painfully. "Just fix me up."

The Orderly patted down the sheet, slapping it against the half-dozen piled high on the bed opposite. "No can-do, I'm just doin' the laundry ..."

Leaping back onto the decking and stalking across the infirmary, Isabelle clamped a free hand on the sailor's shoulder and spun him around. With a sharp thrust of her forearm pushed underneath his chin she forced the orderly backwards, until he lay awkwardly on top of his neatly-folded sheets. "Where's the Doc?" She whispered dangerously, teeth set together and bared.

"Dinin' with the Captain and officers!" He grunted, struggling against the pressure on his throat. Isabelle pushed her forearm forward until the orderly began to wheeze, bucking and fidgeting harder as he struggled to suck in enough air to satisfy his lungs. After a few seconds she relented, easing off and stepping back to watch the man sink to his knees and descent into a coughing fit.

Isabelle grimaced, nursing her bicep as another wave of pain came and went, forcing her to lean against the bed for support. "Just get the hell out of my face!" She hissed, the orderly needing no more encouragement to pick himself up and hurry out through the corridor. Roughly shoving a handful of stringy, damp hair out from her features and back behind an ear, Isabelle turned her attention to the cupboards arranged floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall.

"I just want some balm!" She pleaded with the bulkheads.

"You will need to disinfect your wound first," A thick accent interrupted, a familiar accent Isabelle had heard some other time, but not quite in the same way – angrier before, upset …

Cobalt-blue eyes and an alabaster face greeted Isabelle as she turned towards the voice, but not quickly enough for her mind to keep up with her eyes or the lips which had already found a retort. "Unless you're a doctor you'd better get out the hell out of my face-"

The words died away quickly, as Isabelle recognised the lanky blonde she'd taken off her feet and dumped on the decking only the night before. Unable to find anything to say other than another weak sorry, she shrugged her shoulders and rested her weight against the edge of a nearby bed.

"Fortunately for you, I am a Doctor," The stranger said after a moment's pause. Taking only a few seconds to orientate herself with the infirmary's layout, she crossed over to a cupboard with the slightest limp in her otherwise graceful stride, pulling the drawer open and snatching up a bottle. Glancing at the label and nodding to herself she twisted the cap free, upturning it against a bright white rag.

Isabelle's nostrils flared at the subtlest hint of perfume that wafted across in the wake of the blonde, who then stopped expectantly before the bed. "Give me your arm," She commanded with all the warmth of a butcher asking cattle to step blindly into the slaughterhouse.

"Whoah there," Isabelle frowned, consciously twisting the blistered flesh on her arm away behind her back. "I don't even know you from Jack ..."

The scar running along the taller woman's right eye crept up towards her forehead, as she cocked her features to the side. "My name is Anastacia Nizhardrie … And you are?"

"Uh … Isabelle Towers," Came the mumbled reply. "Excellent," Anastacia nodded,"We are introduced – give me your arm."

Hesitating, Isabelle wrung her hands together. "The last time we met you ended up sprawled all over the deck … Took a sore one and all ..."

"So you are questioning my professionalism as well, Miss Towers? Are you always so full of insults or must I catch you at a particular time of day?"

"Early morning, lunchtime, early-evening, nightfall ..." The Stoker replied with a nervous grin. "If my eyes are open, that's generally a good time I suppose."

"Indeed," The blonde replied simply, expectantly, holding her palm out and waiting. Isabelle sighed, shuffling over the mattress and gingerly offering the bicep to the other woman's grip. Pale fingers wrapped around the wound with surprisingly gentleness, head moving down until level with the angry mass of pink-tinged, irritated flesh. Unable to help herself and taking more than a little advantage of the good Doctor's distractedness, Isabelle turned her nose towards the blonde hair, pulled tightly in a twist and pinned to the back of the taller woman's head.

Taking a deep breath and savouring the scent, the vaguest hint of citric, Isabelle was rudely pulled back to reality by a stinging pain that forced her to jerk her arm away from Anastacia's grasp. The Doctor looked irritated for a moment, before reading the discomfort written all over the soot-smudged, tanned features opposite and softening her stance.

"The iodine will sting," Anastacia half-apologised. "I will be more gentle … Please give me your arm."

Sighing, Isabelle nodded and shuffled back across the bed. Clenching her teeth together as the cloth made as gentle a contact as possible with the burn, she concentrated alternatively on digging her fingernails into the mattress and filling her lungs with a flowery perfume spinning about the senses.

There were worse ways to spend one's time, after all.

* * *

"Stop touching it," Anastacia repeated for the fourth time in as many minutes as she set about returning the excess bandage, balm and iodine to their respective cupboards. For the fifth time in as many minutes, Isabelle ignored the advice – prodding and tugging on the bandage wrapped firmly around her bicep. Already she could feel the cooling effect of the balm drawing the heat from the wound, soothing the skin. Rotating her shoulder, satisfied enough the risk of gangrene and amputation had probably passed, she pushed off the edge of the bed.

"Thanks for the help," Isabelle mumbled, pushing her hair back out from her eyes as she struggled to find more appreciative words. The silent search went on and without anything more, she turned and headed for the doorway. "If there's anything I can do to repay the patch-up, just let me know ..."

"Dinner," Anastacia replied quickly, still closing the drawer and climbing back up to her feet awkwardly. Stopping in her tracks, mouth hanging slightly open, the Stoker blinked away her surprise. "Dinner? … With me?"

"Yes, why not with you?" The blonde repeated, that same scar moving up to furrow her brow. "The food that is served above-decks does not suit me or my palette, it is too rich. I require something a little more ..."

She struggled to find the word, hoping not to offend with the only accurate one left to her, " … Simple."

Isabelle felt her cheeks flush to match the colour of her bandaged burn as she understood what the woman opposite had actually meant. "They serve slop to anyone without epaulettes on their shoulders," She shrugged. "Surely it can't be that bad up above?"

Anastacia considered it for a second, her lips twisting slightly. "I choose slop."

A grin spread across Isabelle's own lips as she shrugged and extended a hand towards the doorway. "Yes ma'am!" She chorused. "If you'll follow me?"


	4. Chapter IV : The Lower Decks

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

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_Chapter IV : The Lower Decks …_

* * *

Isabelle poked a fork into the mashed potato cautiously, swirling it around the dented metal bowl and occasionally stabbing at a lump whenever one dared to appear in the yellowish mix. Grimacing and pushing the bowl away, she settled on trying to decide what seemed more ridiculous to her; the woman dressed in a light blue, ankle-length dress – complete with ruffles and a matching petticoat – sat opposite and in amongst sooty stokers, greasers and sailors, or the fact said woman was devouring the lumpy potatoes set in front of her with something approaching relish.

Picking at the same lumpy potatoes with the fork still held in her hand, Isabelle settled on the latter. Glancing about the mess, which in itself was nothing more than a steel box filled with hard wooden benches and tables, she nodded her head whenever her eyes fell across a familiar face. It was quiet, with most of those off-shift forsaking the cold potatoes and stringy meat to spend a penny or two on something a little more edible, on the upper decks.

She glanced back at Anastacia, a smile spreading on her lips as she caught sight of Eamon collecting a ladle's worth of slop and meandering through the benches. "Mind if I join you ladies?" He asked cheerfully, sliding up beside Isabelle and dropping his tray to the tabletop with a rattle. He stirred the mashed potato in his bowl, frowning as he tried to equate what he was about to eat with whatever the blonde was virtually wolfing down.

"Is that the same stuff?" He chuckled, letting the lumpy, yellow potato fall off his spoon and back into the bowl with a soft splat. Reaching a hand over, the old Irishman offered the other woman a lopsided grin. "I don't believe we've been introduced – Eamon Shamus, Chief Stoker and all-round good, honest, dependable gent."

Scooping the last dregs from her bowl and finishing the last spoonful, Anastacia met the hand with one of her own. "Doctor Anastacia Nizhardrie ..."

"That's a fair eastern accent you've got there," Eamon exclaimed, tapping his spoon against the side of the bowl. "I best expect you're from a bit further afield than Belfast?"

Anastacia nodded, folding her hands into her lap and sitting up ramrod-straight; becoming even more out of place amongst the clutter, grease and sooty faces. "Russia … Tsaritsyn, specifically. Are you going to consume that?"

"Hmm?" Isabelle muttered, somewhat lost in marvelling at how easily Eamon was able to engage the other woman in conversation. While the silence hadn't been uncomfortable, she'd barely spoken a half-dozen words since coming down from the infirmary; always a sucker for a pretty face. Pushing her bowl across the tabletop, she shook her head. "It's all yours."

Eamon chuckled, shaking his head as he glanced over at Isabelle and winked. "It's good to meet another army man, or woman, if you'll forgive an old man the expression."

Anastacia froze, spoon half-way between the bowl and her mouth. Cobalt eyes fixed on the Irishman, she seemed to take an age to reply. " … How did you know?"

Tapping a finger against his temple, Eamon dug into his own bowl eagerly. "Spent a few years in the service of Her Majesty myself, Queen Victoria's own Irish Guards and I know what it's like to live on rations – know how you learn to keep them down and stop yourself throwing it right back up again and eventually, how you even start to miss a god-awful, shameful excuse for food in your belly."

Isabelle looked on bemusedly, as she watched the old man tuck into his potatoes with exactly the same gusto as Anastacia had shown earlier. "Eat that muck long enough," He mused, "And you'll think you've been invited to the Captain's Table when you eat this sort of stuff."

Anastacia nodded, turning her attention back to Isabelle's donated bowl. "Lumpy or not, I know what this is. There were plates on which I could not tell if the food was fish, fowl, mammal or vegetable."

She grimaced in distaste, as Eamon nodded. "They love confusing the palette up there, no doubt," He agreed. "I like me fish, like any man but I don't like it inside another fish, or stuffed up a bird, or just sweetened like I'm eating pudding. Fiddles with the mind, makes a meal out of eating a meal. Give me a roast and some ale any day!"

"Amen to that," Isabelle chimed in. Scraping the last of the gifted potato from the inside of the bowl, Anastacia set it down to join the first and pushed her chair back. "I will take them back," She announced, scooping both up into the crook of her elbow and arm. "Excuse me."

"Two bowls, empty and returned? Cook won't know what's hit him!" Eamon chuckled, concentrating on his own. "Fine catch you've landed there, Izzy. If I were ten years younger and not married to a fair lass with a furious, terrible temper for shenanigans ..."

"There's nothing to it," Isabelle snapped defensively, folding her arms across her chest. She might as well have offered Eamon a wink than deny it, because the Irishman simply leant back, folding his hands behind his heads and whistling a tuneless ditty as he nodding, knowingly.

"You're looking at a man whose raised helped bring two wee girls and a lad into this world, Izzy; I know the subtlest workings of love … And how to duck frying pans launched for your head. She's a bonnie lass, a look of the east about her, no doubt."

Isabelle sighed, puffing her cheeks out, "I got drunk night before this one," She admitted without meeting the Irishman's gaze. "Rounded the corner and knocked her clean off her feet."

"So?" Eamon shrugged with a mouthful of potato, "She's here now, isn't she? Hard work's done, my lass. You've got a foot in the door – now it's time to convince her to open it and invite you in. Time to find something common 'tween you two."

I don't have any army stories," Isabelle grumbled, staring down at the tabletop. Eamon nodded, clapping his hands together. "That's as well as good, because If I were a betting man – and I am – I'd wager the limp she's carryin' comes from an army story. Doubt she's much willing to tell them ..."

"I shovel coal into boilers for a living!" Isabelle half-laughed, throwing her hands up in the air. "What chance have I got with a Doctor? One with enough money that she's not travelling steerage with the rest of the Irish!"

Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, Eamon frowned. "I'll overlook the slight on my calling in life, if you'll stop acting like a wee girl. Take a look around – where are we right now? Do you see any Pursers, holding doors open with shiny-metal handles? See any sun loungers, big fluffy animal-coats or top hats?"

Eamon made a show of looking around, squinting his eyes and shielding them with a palm over his forehead. "Me neither, so we must be in with the rats and the sailors. That means she's in with the rats and the sailors, too."

"Fine," Isabelle practically pouted. "So what's my next move?"

"Wouldn't dream of spoiling the chase," He whispered, turning his head and raising his voice by several decibels. "Well Ladies, thanks again for the pleasure of your company but I've got an engine room to be shouting at!"

Isabelle's nostrils flared, recognising a perfume distinct from the smell of industry a moment before the blonde reappeared from the throng of stokers and greasers milling around the table. "Very glad to meet you, Anna – hope to see you again sometime soon!"

Anastacia nodded, stepping aside to allow Eamon through with this tray. Clasping her harms behind her back, the taller woman cocked her head to the side, towards Isabelle. "Is there anything else you would like to do?"

Taking in the lithe body and the alabaster face sitting atop it, she desperately tried to think of an answer that wouldn't invite a quite-justified slap to the cheek. Biting her lip, Isabelle drummed her fingers against the desk, blurting out the first idea that passed her hastily-implemented decency test.

"We could take a walk?" She bumbled, awkwardly.

"Acceptable," Anastacia answered after a great deal less thought.

* * *

Geocentrism – the belief that the Earth stood utterly still with the all the worlds and suns beyond orbiting around – as well as the later works of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler might well have been proven wrong, such was the blackness of the night's sky. No stars could be seen shining brightly and there was no Moon to cut a crescent-shaped hole in the blanket of nothingness.

Sea and the horizon melted together without definition.

Watching her breath billow up and dissipate on the chilly wind, Isabelle pulled the folds of her coat in tightly and buried her chin behind the collar. The hopes she'd harboured, that swapping the bustling, noisy mess for the quiet tranquillity of the promenade deck might somehow spontaneously give her something new and interesting to say had fallen flat.

They'd walked the entire starboard side without exchanging a word and while the silence was hardly uncomfortable, Isabelle still felt as if she should make some sort of effort; find something common between herself and the tall blonde opposite. Resting her weight against the ship's handrail, arms folded across her chest, Isabelle watched Anastacia peer over the edge of the stern and down the fifty-plus feet to the waterline; her gaze following a churning, tumulus wake of foamy water being whipped into a furious froth by the Titanic's enormous propellers, stretching out until the ship's lights and Anastaca's eyes could no longer distinguish it from the dark.

Hung out on the ocean liner's Jack Staff the Blue Ensign, representing the Royal Naval Reserve of which many of the ship's officers belonged, fluttered on a passing breeze. The direction of the wind shifted for a moment, and Isabelle could sniff out the pungent tang of burning coal on the air, disgorged in great clouds by the ship's enormous funnels. Squeezing her eyes shut and taking in a good chest's full, a small smile spread across her lips. The fires of industry, the incredible stresses and strains going on beneath her feet that somehow propelled this enormous iron ship across the world …

Anastacia cocked her head to the side, the scar across her eye and temple twisting as her brow furrowed. She watched Isabelle, and the smile that crept across her features. Clasping her hands behind her back she waited patiently for whatever thought or memory to pass. After several minutes whatever it was that kept Isabelle smiling showed no signs of surrendering its grip, so Anastacia ran out of patience.

"Are you okay?" She asked, rather more loudly than intended. Isabelle's eyes snapped open, stammering as her cheeks began to flush the slightest tinge of red. "Sorry," She managed sheepishly, rubbing at the back of her neck with her palm. "I was a million miles away ..."

"So I see," The blonde replied quizzically, her bright blue eyes narrowed in confusion. "Where were you?"

She Who Dares Wins, Isabelle shrugged, recalling Eamon's motto discussed over lumpy potatoes. "Don't you feel it?" She asked, with such mystery that the tall woman opposite immediately glanced about herself, as if expecting some surprise. "Come over here," Isabelle waived, stepping over to the handrail running across the bow of the ship.

"Put your hand on the rail, hold it tight," She instructed. Anastacia opened her mouth to argue, but was cut off by the Stoker as she shook her head. "Just do it."

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the blonde stretched a hand out until it lightly rested against the polished metal fitting. Isabelle watched, her own fingers wrapped tightly around the rail. "Take the glove off and take a good hold of it," She chastised. "I'm pretty sure it'll hold your weight ..."

Anastacia scowled, but nonetheless did as she was told. Stripping the leather glove from her hand, she pushed it into the folds of her petticoat and duly squeezed the metal rail with her palm. She frowned, turning her attention back to Isabelle. "This is pointless."

"Close your eyes and tell me what you feel," Isabelle insisted.

Cobalt orbs disappeared behind eyelids as Anastacia indulged the sailor one final time. She sighed, as if waiting for some unbelievable truth or revelation to strike her down to the decking. After only a few seconds, she had apparently had enough of the soul searching. "I feel my hand getting colder ..." She snapped sarcastically.

Isabelle pushed down on the surge of irritation trying to force its way up from her gut. "You don't feel the heartbeat?" She muttered, her own eyes firmly shut, both hands upon the railings. If Anastacia did not understand before, she stood thoroughly confused after. "I do not understand."

"The ship," Isabelle replied slowly, savouring the vibration – however small – that passed from the polish metal into her flesh. "Ignore everything else and you'll feel it … Feel it rising up from the boilers and the generators, rising all the way up through this railing and into your fingertips."

Anastacia continued to frown, but placed her hand back on the railing. She closed her eyes once again, and several seconds passed before they opened. "I think I understand. I can feel the vibration … They are a result of poorly-fitting components. It is not a difficult repair."

"You're missing the point!" Isabelle sighed in exasperation, throwing her hands up into the air. "It's not some malfunction, it's the heartbeat that's taking us all the way across the Atlantic. It's the power that's turning her screws and keeping the lights on; it's the strength that ignores the biggest swells and the highest waves – it's the different between a hunk of iron and something more, something that's alive."

The blonde shook her head, reaching into her petticoat and pulling out the glove she'd removed earlier. "It is a propulsion device."

"No!" Isabelle grinned, clapping her hands together. "It has its own quirks, its own personality, its own little way of doing things. Once upon a time it might have been a "propulsion device", on blueprints and tech drawings but the hands of men made this ship, and men aren't devices. We riveted her hull together, we welded her boilers closed and we laid the carpets! You need a little good, old-fashioned magic to bring something like this to life ..."

Anastacia nodded, considering the words. "Have you been drinking?" She asked, without the slightest hint of humour. Isabelle shrugged her shoulders, pulling her hand away from the rail. "Fine – you want a little more evidence? I'll prove it to you."

"Forget the loungers, the grand pianos and the en-suite bathrooms!" Isabelle scoffed, throwing a hand over her head as she turned on the spot and marched off towards the ship's superstructure. "I'll show you the real Titanic!"

* * *

Without the benefits of entire decks to buffer and drown out the noise, Titanic's engine room was an incredible mechanical orchestra whose performances were impossibly loud, delivering crashing, booming crescendos amidst the flash of metal and the hiss of steam. Enormous pistons twenty times the height of a man, boasting heads as large as sailing yachts, turned on gigantic flywheels fed by the incredible pressure and power of steam. Each rotation produced a fantastic whooshing, creating buffeting, artificial winds that went a little way to cooling the incredible heat given off by the piping that crawled over every surface.

Not unlike ants asked to climb the steps of the Parthenon, men scurried up ladders and across gantries – consulting hundreds of gauges, manipulating thousands more levers, valves and controls to harness the incredible power at hand. There were no fantastical thinking machines to do such work, for even the authors of science fiction had not yet looked far enough into their imagined future to pluck such silliness and put it to paper. Only exhaustive, eternal vigilance kept each part of the grander system balanced. Only tireless, back-breaking work kept the mighty pistons moving, Titanic's enormous propellers turning and her hungry furnaces burning.

But move they did, turn they did and burn they did.

Anastacia's senses could not help but be assaulted all at once, so that she felt very nearly overwhelmed by the terrific mechanics surrounding her. Half a dozen odours; grease, coal, soot, the tang of metal and more combined to fill her lungs and throat, while the gusts whipped up by the thunderous actions of the pistons forced her alabaster skin into goosebumps. The repetitive thundering of actuators, valves and rods pushing, pulling and twisting could not have been louder if Anastacia had laid on the track beneath a passing locomotive.

Wisps of blonde were pulled free of their severe twist with each passing whoosh of air, billowing about her features until she tucked them back behind an ear. Lips slightly agape, blue eyes panned all about the cavernous chamber which seemed more suited to the vaulted, high ceiling of some enormous cathedral than the engineering workspaces of a ship. Leaning against the bulkhead, Isabelle watched the very look she'd worn herself all those months ago in Belfast, when she'd stepped aboard the then-soon to be completed RMS Titanic. The sheer wonder, the incredible technology … It was as close to perfection as she wagered anything could be.

"It is … An impressive ship," Anastacia managed, eventually. The smile blossomed to a grin, as Isabelle nodded her head. "I bet you hear the heartbeat now."

The blonde made to answer, before closing her lips and casting her eyes up, looking uncomfortable. She half-nodded, turning her attention away from the Stoker deliberately. Satisfied enough at the response – or the lack of one – Isabelle turned back towards the piston housings and came face-to-face with the man who could claim to own them.

"Giving tours of my engine room now, are we?" Joseph boomed, his voice easy to understand even above the din of the workspaces surrounding. Upper lip twitching beneath a broad, brown moustache, the Titanic's Chief Engineer folded his arms across his chest, the yellow bands of his rank conspicuous against the dark blue of his cuffs. "Lieutenant Crawford's on the prowl, lady … He'd not be best pleased to find you bringing down passengers."

Isabelle chanced a small smile, just about resisting the urge to twist on the tip of a foot and glance bashfully down at the ground. "I guess I'm just lucky you like me then ..."

Joseph's moustache twitched violently, "You're fast running out of favours my girl," He warned. "Let's be having no more nonsense from you, or a washed-up Naval Officer will be the very least of a long list of your problems … Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly," She nodded solemnly. "May I introduce you to Doctor Anastacia Nizhardrie ..."

Far be it for anyone to presume he had a tell of any kind, the Engineer's moustache twitched once again as he straightened his back imperceptibly, extending out a formal hand to meet Anastacia. "Commander, Royal Naval Reserve, Joseph G. Bell. Ship's Chief Engineering Officer."

"You have an efficient ship," Anastacia nodded as she returned the handshake. Joseph frowned, scratching at his lip. "She burns her coal well," He nodded. "I think there's a little more to be squeezed out of her yet though, stretch her legs if you'll forgive the saying."

"I do not believe we are travelling at a greater speed than eighteen knots," She nodded. "Do you intend to increase engine power to maximum?"

Isabelle's jaw dropped as she fixed the blonde with a deeply confused stare, beginning to feel like her carefully laid "game" was coming apart at the rivet joints. For his part, Joseph smiled – a very small smile, but a smile nonetheless – and leant his weight against the bulkhead behind. "Care to guess as to her maximum power output?"

"I do not guess," Anastacia frowned, "However I am familiar with the engine configuration for the Olympic-class. The triple-expansion reciprocating engines fitted to the Titanic generate a maximum of thirty thousand horsepower, while the Parsons' low-pressure turbine is capable of a maximum output of sixteen thousand additional horsepower."

Joseph levered himself off the bulkhead, tugging at his cuffs. "Not bad, not bad at all Miss Nizhardrie. Still, you might just be a keen amateur … What's her draft?"

"Fifty nine point five feet," She answered confidently. Isabelle continued to look on, dumbfounded. Shifting her weight she tried to reconcile the woman who had dismissed the ship as a mere propulsion device, while having a knowledge of it that would probably put more than one senior officer on-board to shame. The Chief Engineer nodded, "Unladen weight?"

Anastacia did not even hesitate, "Sixty six thousand tons. Approximately."

If Joseph was satisfied, he showed no sign of it. "Build cost?"

"Inclusive of outfitting, or total construction cost before finishing?" The blonde queried. That rare smile crept across Bell's face again as he nodded his approval, "Total cost, please."

"Seven point five million dollars," She clarified. "Total electrical output for ship's dynamos?"

Anastacia cocked her head to the other side, considering for the briefest moment. "Sixteen thousand amps at one hundred volts."

"She's a clever one," Joseph surmised finally as he pulled on the lapels of his duty jacket. "Better keep a close eye on her. If you'll excuse me Miss Nizhardrie, I've got some engines to tweak ..."

Anastacia nodded, turning her attention back to Isabelle who regarded her as if a second head had just spontaneously grown to join the first, perhaps breathing fire or covered in scales. "You little liar!" She erupted, jabbing a triumphant finger into the air, "You think exactly the same as me!"

"Explain," The blonde frowned. Isabelle grinned, continuing to wag a finger. "I get it now – I really do. You're trying to be tough like iron, right? Deep down though, you get excited by all this shiny, you get the same thrill I do when you hear these pistons crashing up and down; you get the same buzz when you see the sea all churned up behind us and frothing like it's mad.

Anastacia shook her head, hands clasped behind her back. "You are very much mistaken."

All the doubt that earlier had dampened her spirit like a freak wave over the bow was lifted, replaced by an almost cheeky, lackadaisical desire to turn the tables on this woman and make her chase her own tail for a while. "You think you're pretty tough, huh? You'd like everyone to think you've got more in common with steel than flesh and blood, right? Well you're out of luck, Doctor Nizhardrie – I know your secret and I'm going to tell the world!"

The edges of Anastacia's lips tightened perceptibly, as she struggled to keep her voice cool and clipped. "I am merely interested in shipbuilding," She almost-shrugged. "Your analysis is flawed."

"So now it comes down to one question," Isabelle continued, ignoring the other woman in the bizarre monologue. "Do you hide it because you're protecting yourself, or 'cause you don't really like me? If you don't really like me, I'm not sure why you've come followed me down here …"

"I do like you," Anastacia replied immediately, the narrowing of her eyes betraying a realisation as to the words too late to take them back.

"Aha!" Isabelle whooped, clapping her hands together, "So you're doing it to keep the Big Bad Russian thing going, now we're making progress Anna! I've got a hypothesis I'd like to share with you."

Anastacia regarded the woman opposite suspiciously. "And that is?"

"Follow me!" Isabelle winked, suddenly taking the other woman by the hand, turning and disappearing into the maze of piping, pistons and pumps.


	5. Chapter V : Hard to Starboard

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

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_Chapter V : Hard to Starboard …_

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Captain Edward Smith could feel the chill of the night air against his skin, his neatly trimmed, off-white beard providing no protection to the wind rolling across the ship. Narrowing his eyes as a gust of icy cold blew across the port Bridge wing, he plucked the service cap from his head and scratched at the matted hair beneath. In all the years spent at sea – some thirty of them at the service of the White Star Line – he had never seen a sea so calm, as if the ship did not so much sail as skate across a smooth, transatlantic plate of glass.

"She's calm tonight sir," His Second Officer noted, pulling closed his heavy overcoat. It will make it harder to spot the 'Bergs, at least with no breaking water at the base."

"Yes ..." Smith mumbled, stepping down from the ledge. "I'm going off-shift, you have the bridge; Maintain speed and heading, Mister Lightoller."

"Aye Sir," He nodded, rubbing his gloved hands together and trying to shield his eyes as he directed his gaze out across the Titanic's bow. He'd never seen a sea like this …

* * *

"Enough of this!" Anastacia called out a little more loudly than she would have liked, struggling to keep up with the Stoker's pace but making no real effort to free her hand from Isabelle's. Gradually the shining metal and clean lines of the engine room became muddled, dark. Streaks of soot stretched across the bulkheads, turning copper and brass black. The air became ever-more charged with a thick, grey smoke that licked across the ceiling and down the walls. The lights above, swinging gently in the roll of the ship, illuminated particles of coal as they floated through the corridors.

The groans and grunts of hard-working men reverberated against the walls, themselves dancing with skewing, flickering shadows. Anastacia could feel the warmth of fire against her flesh and the stink of cinder, as the pair rounded a corner. The corridor widened suddenly into a great, high-ceiling chamber, lined in multiple rows with great cast-iron furnaces. Grimy figures buried their shovels into enormous mountains of black rock, bending their backs to the matter of sating the engines' hunger.

The wood her prosthetic was shaped from was strong enough to support a person four times her weight, but what remained of Anastacia's leg to which it was attached was not so strong. The force of each impact against the hard steel decking was transmitted up, wood grinding against scarred skin and shortened bone. Eventually it became too much and she jerked her hand free of Isabelle, stumbling to a halt and falling onto her knees.

The smile on Isabelle's face disappeared as she screeched to a halt, dropping down to one knee and subconsciously taking hold of the hand she'd lost. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I am fine," Anastacia replied through gritted teeth, her own free hand massaging the cup to which her lower leg sat against the prosthetic. Squeezing her eyes shut she sucked in great lungfuls of air, lifting her thigh up against the straining leather straps to find some relief from the pressure.

Isabelle frowned, suddenly keenly aware of other eyes from the stokers and firemen surrounding. "Let me help you ..."

"No!" Anastacia roared, defiant cobalt eyes burning into their opposite number. "I do not need your help – I do not need anyone's help. I do not want your pity ..."

Frowning, Isabelle took a moment to appreciate the fact that her temper made no attempt to appear, let alone take control. Unlike the first time she had heard those words, when the absurd urge to pick the blonde up and knock her down again had been almost overpowering, now she felt more able to take command of something far more demanding than an ocean liner; her own rage.

Sliding down onto the decking, Isabelle pressed her temple against the bulkhead, "You've said that to me before ..." She half-smiled, glancing towards the other woman. "I've said it to so many people; some I knew like family, others were just faces … Didn't even know their names. Wore it like a badge of honour or some heavy suit of armour. If you rely on yourself, you can't be disappointed in anyone but yourself, right?"

"I wish I could say I don't remember much about my father ..." Isabelle began, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "Truth is I remember everything; I remember him taking me down to the docksides, to see the grand ships of the Cunard Line and the White Star Line come rolling in. We used to sit on top of the big cast-iron bollards, until they threw those heavy ropes over the sides and strapped the ships right up close.

"Other times he'd sneak me aboard, for the price of a good bottle of scotch or just the promise of a favour sometime down the line. He'd ask me what I wanted to see and he would never get bored with the answer – I couldn't help myself. Ever since I'd seen Cunard's Umbra while she was coming together, saw the enormous brass propeller jutting out from her smooth hull, I knew that's what I wanted to do. The power of steam, ships travelling fifteen, twenty knots! You could cross the Atlantic in two days if the weather was kind, three if it threw everything it could at you.

"To see all that shining steel and brass, working together to push a giant piece of iron half-way around the world … I knew then, as I looked down into the drydock, that's where I wanted to be. That's what I wanted to do.

"My father used to say there were really two captains on a ship; the one on the bridge and the one in the engine room. Dozens scurried around polishing, calibrating, observing but only one had the authority, only one could say it was his engine room. Only one had the respect, only one had an entire staff … Only one had the responsibility for everything that hissed and burned and pumped around.

"My father was only an enlisted man, but he'd wanted to make officer; tried more than once but could never find a sponsor …"

Isabelle frowned as she glanced up at the blanket of smoke drifting across the ceiling. "Maybe he just wasn't cut out for it, but there's something about the way they carry themselves – something about leadership, valour, honour … Somehow it all boils down to a yellow stripe on your cuff but it means something, to me anyway. My mother never approved – she thought the whole thing, gallivanting around the world by steam, just got in the way of life and how to live it. Seems a bit strange then that she'd ever end up with a Navy man."

"Didn't end up with him long," She sighed, circling her arms around her knees. "He was away for months at an end but we always knew when he was coming home, 'cause he'd send my mother a postcard, with the dock number his ship would be mooring at circled in the centre of the card. She'd pin it on my door so I'd see it when I woke up first thing …

"I knew she'd gotten one, but only after I hassled the postman for days on end, accusing him of some pretty terrible things like losing it, or stealing it. She never told me what it said, exactly, but I got the guts of it; he wasn't coming home again."

"Mother never relied on anyone except herself, and if I think really hard I can only recall one time she broke that motto – when a young sailor named John Forrestal got down on one knee and asked for her hand in marriage. She'd been a dancer back in the older days, quite a good one if what I found while rummaging through a few trunks in the cellar when I was eight was anything to go by. She won more than a few county championships, even represented the whole island at one point …

Isabelle placed her hands on her hips, voice lowering to a gravely imitation as she tipped her chin up. "Dreaming doesn't pay the bills," she used to say. I guess that's why she ended up a seamstress in a fabric factory for over twenty years. I guess that's why she bought our first house in cash, refusing to have anything to do with a bank in getting a loan. I guess that's why her courtship with my father was probably the longest County Mayo's ever seen ..."

"Some people are fine enough with that, with self-reliance; some people even like it. Some people get on ships, head off for the remotest corner of the earth and set up shop … But she wasn't like that. My mother appeared matter-of-fact, bristling, even stand-offish but it was all a front. All a cover to hide the fact that she desperately didn't want to do it all alone. It's why she kept her dancing shoes in a box downstairs, it's why she kept all those prize ribbons, all those newspaper clippings turned yellow with age.

"She didn't talk much about her past, so maybe something happened that built a wall between her and the rest of the world. All I know is the wall came down only once, for my father, and when he sent that postcard, without a dock number circled, it was rebuilt a thousand times higher and a hundred times thicker."

"One night deep in December, when the snow was piled up so high we didn't get mail for two days, I crept out of my bed to sneak downstairs and get some milk. The weather was so bad my mother hadn't been able to get out of the house and so we were on a strict rationing, but that didn't bother me. I just waited until the flickering light from underneath her door went out and I sneaked past. Once I'd drunk my fill and added a little water to make the bottle look fuller, I sneaked my way back upstairs. Outside her door I heard a sigh, and when I pressed my ear up against the door …

"Maybe she was crying for my father, or maybe she was crying for a life wasted on "Doing the sensible thing". I suppose it doesn't really matter, except to prove that it was all a front. She desperately wanted someone to share the load with but couldn't open up again. She wanted to be like this ship, unsinkable … Just like you."

Anastacia's alabaster features were difficult to read, but the lines drawn across the corner of her mouth and temple betrayed something more than cold indifference to Isabelle's words. Her lips parted several times, as if she were struggling to put into words whatever it was she felt. "You do not even know me ..." She whispered.

Offering the blonde a small smile, Isabelle shrugged her shoulders. "I'd like to change that ..."

"Why?" Anastacia asked quietly, her gaze fixed on the brown eyes of the Stoker opposite. Climbing to her feet, brushing at the dust which had settled onto her thighs from the air above, Isabelle winked cryptically. "Why not?"

The blonde scowled, "That is not an explanation."

"No, I suppose it's not," Isabelle admitted. "Your move."

Anastacia dipped her gaze, down to her legs hidden from view beneath the wide hem of her ruffled dress. Pressing down on her thigh, wincing slightly, she extended an arm out and into the air. Her hand reached for Isabelle wordlessly, and the other woman understood implicitly. Stepping forward, she took the hand in hers and reached down, cradling the small of Anastacia's back as she carefully but firmly hauled her up to standing.

Unfortunately for Isabelle, she hadn't planned much beyond this point and suddenly found the other woman pressed tightly against her. Free hand still resting just above where it would be considered most improper, brown eyes found their cobalt opposites and promptly became lost. Isabelle found herself taking in everything she could; the scars coloured only slightly more darkly than the porcelain skin surrounding, reaching across her eyebrow and spreading out from a point underneath her ear not unlike a star burst; the wisps of blonde hair that fell down to tickle a pale forehead and the soft lips that were ever so close to her own …

Anastacia swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling quite out of control and not unlike a ship steaming full-ahead without a rudder. She hardly knew this woman – having been enraged with her less than a day before – and now having literally been swept off her feet and then delicately picked back up again. She was aware of the strong hand at her back, but felt no panic or alarm, and if anything a security in the hold. Quite apart from the terrific heat of the furnaces burning brightly a short distance away, she felt a warmth spread throughout her body.

Hesitantly, as if she were second-guessing every thought let alone action, her own hands edged upwards until they found the small of Isabelle's back and held steady there. A smile spread across the shorter woman's face, half-nervous and half-something-more.

"How many furnaces are on this ship?" Isabelle asked quite suddenly, so that Anastacia pulled her head away slightly in confusion. "One hundred and fifty nine … Why?"

The Stoker nodded, "What's the system steam pressure?"

Anastacia's scar over her eye climbed upwards, "two hundred and fifteen pounds per square inch. I do not understand the relevance … Why are you asking these questions?"

The blonde felt the other woman's shoulders sag slightly, the smile still shining brightly. "No real reason," Isabelle shrugged. "It's just that for a split-second my mind was distracted with something other than the burning desire to kiss you."

A very small smile – small enough that one would have to be about as close as Isabelle was to see it – but there nonetheless, curled Anastacia's lips upwards. The taller woman said nothing, bright blue eyes giving absolutely nothing further away. For the first time since taking the blonde by the hand, Isabelle suddenly felt very much like the one steering without a rudder.

* * *

William Murdoch, the ship's First Officer, rubbed his gloved hands together briskly as he watched his breath billow out from numb lips. Never the balmiest of nights the temperature had nonetheless dropped four degrees in only a few hours, with only the action of the waves keeping the temperature above freezing. Shrugging his shoulders and stamping his feet against the decking, Murdoch glanced up to see that a few stars had managed to penetrate the total blackness of the night's sky.

From his position on the starboard-side wing – one of two simple, uncovered viewing platforms bolted to either side of the enclosed bridge – he enjoyed a complete view over the enormous Olympic-class liner's bow, as it tapered to a fine point that crashed its way through the North Atlantic. Such was the complete darkness and the necessity of extinguishing all ship's lights forward of the bridge, to make sure nothing affected the crew's ability to spot obstacles in the dark, that he struggled to pick out details like the enormous cast-iron chains holding the ship's heavy anchors in place.

So calm was the sea, that Murdoch was almost convinced he might step over the side and skate all the way to Pier Fifty Nine and New York City. Smiling to himself, he pulled the folds of his overcoat in and did his best to ignore the biting chill.

The plunging temperatures of the Atlantic and the cold in his bones were instantly forgotten as a bell hung high above his head tolled three times, frantically. Gloves pressing against the wooden ledge he pushed himself up onto the tips of his toes, eyes narrowing desperately as he scanned the invisible horizon for a threat responsible for the collision warning.

A short distance away inside the bridge, the sailor manning the Titanic's enormous, multi-spoked helm wheel frantically glanced back at the ringing phone mounted to the bulkhead. He sighed in relief as the ship's Sixth Officer, James Moody span ably around the corner balancing a cup and saucer on his open palm. Pulling the ear horn up and twisting the connection switch with his free hand, the panicked voice of one of the lookouts high above the bow filtered through; "Is there anyone there!"

"Yes," Moody replied evenly. "What do you see?"

The desperate response was anything but even. "Iceberg! Right ahead!"

And then Murdoch saw it; a mountain of ice sculpted by the wind and the rain, standing some sixty feet plus in height so that Murdoch had to crane his head up to spot the peak. The Iceberg slipped free of the inky blackness that had hidden it so well, like some skulking, stalking assassin slipping out from behind the curtain billowing in front of an open window.

Pushing himself off with such force that he almost fell to the decking, Murdoch sprinted frantically for the bridge, throwing himself to the side as one of his junior officers, James Moody, tried to tell him what he already knew. "Iceberg right ahead!"

"Hard-a-starboard!" Murdoch screamed, half-pushing into the bridge past Moody. With a grunt the sailor manning the helm began to spin the heavy wheel with both hands, desperately trying to catch a glance through the windows of the danger staring them directly in the face. Spinning on his heels and knocking the tea – saucer and all – from Moody's palm, Murdoch dashed across the decking. Ignoring the prickling sweat underneath his heavy coat, he flung the wide brass lever of the port engine telegraph across, ordering it full astern.

Pushing himself away from the port-side control to the next telegraph frantically, Murdoch heaved the selector to one extreme and then back, ordering it to full ahead. Ignored utterly by the First Officer, Moody's voice echoed through the open door. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" He bellowed, as the sailor manning the ship's wheel heaved for all his worth – and the worth of the entire crew.

Isabelle could feel the distance between their lips closing, the stink of burning coal being defeated by the soft smell of perfume, such was the closeness. She curled a hand around Anastacia's arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze, unaware of just how rapidly her chest had come to rise and fall. The heat from the furnaces was now nothing, not even the most distant competitor, to the fire spreading across through her senses.

Joseph Bell glanced up from the pressure gauge he was examining, the tell-tale "ring" of the Engine Room telegraphs immediately seizing his attention. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the brass pointer shift along the order segments at breakneck speed, his gaze finding Lieutenant Crawford's as they both looked at each other with a sudden realisation.

"Full Astern! He bellowed, hauling himself up and away from the telegraphs.

On the Bridge the Titanic's wheel could turn no more and it stopped sharply in the Sailor's hands, refusing to move any further despite the gravity of the situation. "Hard over!" He shouted, relaying the message along to Sixth Officer Moody who nodded, sprinting out after Murdoch. "Helm hard over Sir!"

The First Officer hauled himself up onto the port-side wing's observing ledge, teeth gritting together as the bow showed no obvious desire to shift her course despite the imminent catastrophe. A short distance away the shining brass telegraphs rang out, as the Engine Room acted on his orders. Gloved hands squeezed the varnished wood underneath so tightly it might well have broken under the strain, as Murdoch found that all he could do was watch. And pray.

Anastacia was fortunate that the distance was closing between them without conversation, for she had no words to describe the swirling maelstrom of feeling that rose from the very pit of her gut, up to blind her mind with its brightness. She could no more remember how to take a pulse, or dress a wound than she could remember her sense and turn away from the brown eyes opposite. The distance was so small now, she was so close … Isabelle's breath could be felt on her lips.

Hundreds of needles beneath circular glass faces began a slow, painfully slow journey towards zero as the Engine Room struggled to carry out the frantic order. While the ship was equipped with two reciprocating engines and a steam turbine the latter – whose propeller was forward of the rudder – was incapable of operating in reverse, and her steam would have to be re-routed to bring it to a stop.

Dozens of men threw themselves up stairwells, grabbing hold of great metal valves and wheels and twisting them as quickly as their strength would allow. Orders and confirmations were bellowed out between officers and enlisted, struggling to be heard above the din of machinery.

A red lamp flashed into life above Isabelle's head as her lips grazed against Anastacia's, touching for the barest moment before a loud, booming voice rose high above the burning coal and their own burning passions. "Shut the dampers!" A familiar voice cried, as Eamon slowed from the sprint that had carried him forward from further aft of the ship. "Shut 'em now!"

The moment broken, Isabelle glanced first at the flashing lamp above her head and then across at the old Irishman, making his way along the line of furnaces. She turned back towards Anastacia, who felt the slightest tugging and relinquished her hold on the Stoker. Isabelle hesitated, still holding one of the blonde's hands in her own.

"Go," The taller woman nodded with that same small smile. Squeezing the tanned hand held in her own pale fingers and stepping back, she finally broke their closeness utterly. Nodding and spinning on her heels, Isabelle sprinted to the first lit furnace she found and snatched up a shovel. Turning it over to present the shaft to the roaring flame and driving the end against the cast-iron hatch, she forced the heavy cover closed. Banging it against the metal to make sure of a seal, she dropped the shovel to the decking and reached up for a clasp, hanging down from the boiler above on a length of chain.

Wasting no more time than it took her feet to push off against the decking, Isabelle repeated the same process on the next furnace, lending her own strength to the stoker struggling to push a stiff hatch closed. Grunting with effort, beads of sweat gathering and running down the bridge of her nose and stinging her eyes, the pair forced the plate closed with a reverberating clang of metal-on-metal.

As the furnaces were each closed and the heat to the boilers above cut off, the shadows cast all along the bulkheads by the roaring flames themselves flickered and died to the original paintwork. Looking across the line to see every furnace sealed, her gaze met Eamon's. The Irishman's wrinkled face taut with concern, he shrugged. "Now we wait."

"Hold it!" Joseph roared, eyes never wavering from the master gauge as he tracked the pressure changes. "Hold it!" He urged, chancing a glance over the panel. The enormous, multi-storey pistons of the ship's engines were slowing – like they had all the time in the world, but they were slowing. As the heat from the furnaces died away, so did the steam from the boilers and gradually the entire system began to shut down. Each revolution became harder, slower, more laborious. Soon the great weight of the pistons began to work against them and they teetered at the top of their cycle, only rolling over lazily.

"Hold them there!" Bell ordered, nodding to himself. Somewhere amidst the shining metal and pipework a lever was pulled and the pistons were brought to an immediate, jarring halt as enormous locking collars crashed together and barred all movement. The gantries swayed with the transfer of force, men struggling to keep their balance as excess power that should ideally have been allowed to run out was absorbed by the Titanic herself.

Deep below the smooth surface of the North Atlantic, where no man could hope to survive long enough to see, the wing propellers on either side of the rudder began to swing in the opposite direction, ponderously. Joseph did not need to stick his head under the water to realise they were turning too slowly and levering himself over a set of stairs, he pushed a sailor busily turning a pressure wheel out of his way to take the job on himself.

Bell frantically twisted the wheel with all his might, glancing round at pistons beginning to pick up speed behind him. Flushed with all the steam that could be brought to hand, the propellers turned ever-faster, overcoming their own weight penalty and pushing hundreds of needles in hundreds of gauges upwards.

The sea itself had been virtually swallowed by the great wall of ice that now sat all across the front of the Titanic's bow, as Murdoch helplessly watched the frozen mountain bare down on them. "Is it hard over?" He shouted, turning his head back towards the bridge for a split-second.

"It is, yes Sir!" Moody cried back, empty cup still held in his hand as he came to see the Iceberg with his own eyes for the first time. "Hard over Sir!"

"Come on!" Murdoch whispered desperately, pleadingly as he saw the very tip of the Titanic's bow begin to swing to port and away from the craggy, twisted mass of ice that at twenty knots would deliver all the devastating impact power of solid steel. He pushed down against the ledge with his hands, willing the ship to turn faster. "Come on … Turn!"

At the opposite end of the ship from Murdoch, the pistons reached their full reverse speed; hammering upwards and down with such velocity that their brass plating blurred into non-distinct, vague golden-yellow patterns. Deep below the Titanic's waterline her wing propellers churned and sliced through the frigid waters of the sea, virtually invisible behind the cavitation, bubbles and swirling vortexes they threw out.

Slowly, even if it was as quickly as her construction and technology allowed, Titanic began to steer herself to safety. Now grasping the wooden handrail so tightly that his skin might well have blistered were it not for the gloves he wore, Murdoch urged the ship ever-further port. "Yes …" He hissed.

From somewhere forward of the bridge, near the starboard side of the bow, a single solitary voice from a sailor hidden by the night-time shadows confirmed it had all been for naught. "She's gonna' hit!" He cried, a second before the most horrific screeching filled absolutely everything, everywhere. Ice met steel in violent combat, like a jackboot crashing relentlessly down over and over again, denting the hull and twisting the metal. Titanic cried out, the low and keening groan of the battered starboard side sounding every bit as as if she were howling in pain, wounded terribly.

A terrible vibration set about everything, running up through the hull into the ship's ribs and down her spine. The laws of physics demanded the energy of the Iceberg be transferred, and transferred it was to chandeliers, handrails, plates, tables, chairs, pianos, fireplaces, clocks and everything in-between. High up manning the Crow's Nest two lookouts clung on frantically, as the entire platform swung and twisted on the mast.

And yet still, the ship ploughed on. Even while her starboard-forward side raked along the hidden, underwater trenches of thick ice, her engines worked to drive on; pistons hammering and propellers turning like they had always hammered and turned. Murdoch's lips trembled as he felt the entire viewing platform rock and flex, straining at the bolts which held it securely to the bridge. He felt the numbness of shock begin to spread through his body, making his arms heavy and his eyes tired …

Something from the back of his mind roused him, whether it be duty, professionalism or simple instinct. Perhaps decades on the sea had bred into him a canniness that could not be so easily snuffed out and he turned back towards the Bridge, pointing his hand towards the helm. "Hard-a-port!" He roared.

"Hard-a-port!" Moody echoed from the doorway to the wheelhouse.

The sailor manning the ship's wheel took a firm grasp with both hands and began to haul it back in the opposite direction, a thin sheen of sweat covering his paling features. A series of muted bangs echoed through the bridge, sounding not unlike some enormous telegraph key whereby the finger of the operator was played by the part of the Iceberg, tapping out a terrible message against the ship's hull.

Eamon looked across at the bulkhead as those same bangs – sounding deafening rather than muted – began to grow ever louder. The staccato beat of something heavy, relentlessly crashing against the hull outside could mean only one thing. For a moment he hesitated and so he got no further than turning towards Isabelle, lips parting as the starboard bulkhead sheared apart at the rivet joints to drown out his words.

With the force of the entire North Atlantic ready and able to provide an endless army for the Iceberg's battering ram, the hull caved in as surely as a Citadel's gates unlocked before an invading force. Without the rivets to hold the panels together they simply peeled back like tin, spewing thousands of gallons of freezing water onto the decking. The cries of men were easily drowned out by the all-consuming rush of the sea, as it eagerly began to fill the compartment and drown them all.

Isabelle gasped as the searing cold sapped the strength from her legs, lapping at her knees before she even had the time to find the hull breach with her own eyes. She slipped in the flood waters, head disappearing under the rapidly rising level as she frantically grabbed a strut nearby to pull herself up. Exploding out of the water she sucked in air with great gasps, coughing and spluttering as she looked around desperately in the panic.

"Eamon!" She called out, "Anastacia!" But she might as well have whispered than try to be heard over the terrible din.

First Officer Murdoch tore his eyes away from the starboard side and away from watching the iceberg scrape along the ship, sprinting back into the Bridge and skidding to a halt before the map marking out the Titanic's sixteen compartments and the locations of her watertight doors. Pushing the arming button in with a gloved finger, he frantically wrenched the control lever around, breaking the power supply that held the heavy doors open by powerful electro-magnets.

A bell in each section began to ring urgently as gravity took over, pulling each isolation door shut on its cast-iron rollers.

Isabelle waded through the freezing water, spotting a hand desperately crashing around from underneath the level. Grasping it firmly she hauled up a young, panicked stoker who coughed and choked and struggled for breath. "Get out!" She urged, "Get out of here!"

He nodded, barely comprehending as he tried to rub the stinging salt water from his eyes. He waded forward, but the young man never made it more than a few feet towards the compartment door, as flooding reached the hatches of the furnaces. Such incredible forces at work pushed the sea through seals and between plates – dumping gallons of frigid water directly onto fires burning at hundreds of degrees.

Great plumes of super-heated steam blew hatches open and clear free of their frames. The young man screamed, clutching his face as his features disappeared in a blinding flash of roaring white. Isabelle stepped back, shielding her head from the blast as best she could. She gasped, feeling the skin on her forearms redden under the terrific temperatures. Eventually the water did its work and furnaces extinguished, the residual steam cleared so that Isabelle could open her eyes again.

She dashed over to the young man, floating face down in water now almost waist-high. She pushed him over, clutching her stomach and fighting the urge to retch as she took in the charred, bloodied remains of the stoker's burnt features. Stumbling back Isabelle could see bodies – some drowned, some burning but others still moving frantically. Clouds of dissipating steam and smoke still hung in the air and she struggled to identify faces.

Barely audible above the rushing torrent a bell began ringing urgently, signalling power supplying the electro-magnets that kept the heavy watertight doors open had been cut. Isabelle sloshed through the freezing seawater, struggling against the force now as it continued to climb higher against the bulkheads. She glanced around, desperately, finding no familiar faces amongst the panic and the flooding.

A hand clamped against her shoulder and wheeled her around, suddenly. Sopping wet blonde tresses stuck against her pale features, dress buoyed up by the water so that it looked more like she crouched on a blue lilly pad, Anastacia's hand moved immediately to take a hold of Isabelle's. "We must go, now!" She urged.

Keeping hold of the hand but stretching her arm out as she waded forwards, Isabelle shook her head. "I can't see Eamon! We can't leave without him!"

"There is no time!" The blonde urged, tightening her hold to a vice-like grip and roughly pulling Isabelle back. "The watertight doors are closing! We will be trapped inside!"

The stoker fought back with surprising strength, resisting Anastacia and instead tugging her further into the flooding compartment. Gritting her teeth together the taller woman stepped forwards and linked her arms around Isabelle's waist. Using her greater height to an advantage, Anastacia simply lifted the other woman off her feet – the buoyancy of the water helping – and began dragging the pair backwards. Isabelle thrashed like a fish hooked to the end of a line, desperately trying to break the arms locked around her waist.

"Let me go!" She pleaded, eyes trying to find Anastacia's and make her case. "We can't leave him to die in here!"

Anastacia's eyes were focused aft; fixed on the watertight door and its inevitable, grinding path downwards to seal them both in to drown. She was no longer really wading backwards past hissing, smoking furnaces. She was no longer even aboard the RMS Titanic, but on the other side of the world some six years earlier.

Her mind recalled the cold in her bones effortlessly, the way the chill of the water could seep through the ribs and strangle the heart to a stop. This all seemed so familiar – the screams of the dying and the bodies of the dead; the screeching of breaking metal and the fury of the sea as it took revenge on those that sailed it so blithely. Her mind relived that same night all those years ago, tonight, while her body tried to continue the fight.

"Eamon!" Isabelle screamed at the top of her voice, barely audible above the flooding. She sucked in another lungful of air to cry out again but instead found her head forcibly pushed beneath the surface. She choked, swallowing a mouthful of brown, foetid water as she struggled to hold her breath. Strong arms continued to tug on her waist, pressing against the diaphragm and making the act of holding her breath that much harder.

As suddenly as she was forced underwater, she was free of it and falling backwards. Isabelle felt her rump splash through a foot of water and thud against the decking, the back of her head pushing into Anastacia's stomach, cushioned from the worst excesses of the fall. Isabelle took a shuddering gasp, coughing the last dregs of the sea from her lungs and rolling onto her side. Metal came together against metal, as the watertight door slammed down into place – sealing the compartment beyond and condemning anyone left inside alive to death.

Head banging painfully against the steel of the deck with nobody to cushion her own fall, Anastacia felt the sense knocked out of her. Feeling her body turning limp and numb, glassy blue eyes stared up at the ceiling light swaying violently overhead.

Above decks the Titanic lashed out at the Iceberg as it continued to scrape along her starboard side, the ship's superstructure digging into the outcroppings of bulging ice and tearing them free. Enormous chunks crashed onto the decking, shattering into thousands of shards and scattering across the wood and metal or spinning furiously on the spots where each landed. Rushing back onto the starboard-side viewing platform, Murdoch leant over the railing and craned his neck back, watching the ship's vulnerable stern swing away from the Iceberg's devastating reach.

The adrenalin that had powered the First Officer began to wane and for the first time since the bell high above his head had tolled three times, he keenly felt the biting cold as it cooled the sweat on his features. Legs weak Murdoch rested his weight against the ledge for a moment, gathering his wits and forcing himself to stand and make his way onto the Bridge.

"Note the time ..." He croaked, voice hoarse from bellowing. "Enter it in the ship's log."

Sixth Officer Moody nodded, glancing up to the small clock mounted over the diagram of the ship's watertight doors and the twelve lights; each lit and indicating the sections to be sealed from each other. Murdoch leant his weight against the wall behind and swept the service cap from the top of his head, pulling a handkerchief from the folds of his overcoat and wiping it across his features.

He had done all he could.

* * *

After what might have been moments, minutes or hours Isabelle rolled onto her front and climbed up to her knees, pushing across the decking until she could use the rest of her back against the bulkhead. Tipping her head to the side, she squeezed her eyes open and shut, feeling some semblance of sense returning. The pain in her forearms, courtesy of steam burns to the flesh and the stiffness in her chest, courtesy of an unexpected dunking, confirmed she was still alive. The overwhelming urge to sob as she stared over at the watertight bulkhead, however, confirmed her survival hadn't been without cost.

Tilting her head to the left, her eyes fell across the limp body of her rescuer and the woman she'd been able to kiss for exactly one tenth of a second, only a few minutes before. Scrambling away from the bulkhead and over to Anastacia, Isabelle pressed her ear against the blonde's chest, desperately straining to hear a heart.

She felt a single tear break free from her eye and make a break for freedom across her cheek, as the beating came across loudly and true. Slumping onto the deck beside, she eased a hand underneath Anastacia's head and cradled it against her bosom. Leaning down Isabelle planted her lips against an alabaster forehead, holding them there as she'd meant to do before the North Atlantic violently interrupted.

"I am sorry I could not save him ..." A voice whispered hoarsely. "I understand if you come to hate me … It only matters that you are alive to hate."

Isabelle sighed, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. "I would have drowned in there ..." She whispered. Bowing her head into Anastacia's ear. "I couldn't think straight, I couldn't think at all … You saved me."

She sniffled, trying to keep what was left of her composure. "I would have stayed ..."

"I know," Anastacia soothed, turning her head so that her eyes could look up and see the tears. She strained her neck upwards and finally, much delayed, their lips met without anything to interrupt or cut the moment short. The contact was chaste at first, measured, but passion – whether born of lust, love or tragedy – could not be as easily held back as the sea and it quickly took control. Isabelle pressed further, cradling the blonde's head with one hand as she felt the awkwardness fall away.

Passion could be defeated by the biological imperative to breath, however, and eventually it was Isabelle who pulled away to avoid blacking out. Taking in enough air to stave off unconsciousness, she leaned in and brushed her lips over Anastacia's, continuing up to press them against her forehead again.

Offering the Stoker a small smile, she cocked her head to the side. "I think I would like to get out of the water now."

Nodding and climbing first to her own feet, Isabelle leaned down and carefully helped the blonde up – supporting the slight weight as she checked her prosthetic was still strapped tightly to her knee. Pressing the leg down, craning her head back to nod and receiving a quick kiss for the trouble, Anastacia stepped out of Isabelle's grasp. Both women turned their heads towards the sound of raised voices and the clanging of boots against the steel decking, as a group of men wielding torches rounded the corner.

"Are you two Ladies all right?" A sooty-faced greaser asked, stopping before a man slumped against the bulkhead, checking for a pulse and then shaking his head at the officer following in behind. Isabelle glanced at Anastacia and then back towards the sailor, nodding her head. "We're fine ..." She began, turning her eyes towards the watertight door behind. "Fine enough, anyway. What the hell happened?"

The officer stepped ahead of the greaser, his eyes following Isabelle's as he nodded slowly. "Not the faintest clue – Haven't had word from the Bridge or the Captain yet, possibly a thrown propeller blade or similar. Get yourself checked by Doctor O'Loughlin if required, a change of clothes, a hot drink and then report to your station," He ordered briskly, turning towards Anastacia. "Ma'am, can I have someone take you back up to your cabin?"

The blonde frowned, looking towards Isabelle and shaking her head. "I'll take her back up top, Sir," She volunteered. The officer nodded, turning on his heels and leading the team of greasers and stokers back up towards the corner. "Check them!" He shouted, pointing the beam of his torch towards a body slumped on the decking. His voice boomed, bouncing against the corridor's walls as he disappeared from view. "Be careful with them! Check them all!"


	6. Chapter VI : A Mathematical Certainty

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

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Chapter VI : A Mathematical Certainty …

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Isabelle should have gone straight to her bunk, pulled a spare shirt, trousers and braces from the tiny locker that passed as the entirety of her personal space aboard ship and headed straight to the infirmary. Instead she traipsed up through the decks, leaving the rich carpets soggy and damp with her soaked bootprints. Had she been a mere passenger, two burly pursers would long ago have taken an arm each and marched her straight back down to Steerage. As a member of the crew, she was granted a little more leeway.

Any strange stares or second glances from passengers and officers alike were dismissed or shrugged away; she must have a good reason to be up here.

Of course if the truth were known, she had no better reason than to follow Anastacia through the myriad bright white corridors, waiting for her to reach for one of the brass-plated handles leading into the hundreds of rooms that made up the ship's higher-paying passengers. Grimacing at the squelching of her footfalls, Isabelle tried to ignore the horrible clamminess of her skin as her soaking clothes stuck and slapped against it.

Brown eyes instead settled on the shapely body she followed and then, despite her best efforts, settled a little further down at the shapely rear. A quite uncontrollable grin spread across Isabelle's face as she chided herself, tutting her own behaviour. Anastacia stopped and turned on the spot, too quickly for Isabelle to pull her eyes up to match the bright blue pair now gazing at her, quizzically.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, plainly.

"Nope," The Stoker managed with a shake of the head, wincing as her soaking hair slapped against her cheeks. The blonde narrowed her eyes, as if debating whether to interrogate Isabelle further. Eventually she nodded, and produced a key from the folds of her damp petticoat. "We are here."

Isabelle slipped between the door and the frame, after Anastacia, and pushed it closed with a soft thud. The suite was as typical of Titanic inside as out; a tasteful palette of reds, yellows and creams painted with such care that it would not have been surprising if a team of artists, rather than mere decorators were responsible for the room's dressing. A large bed dominated the main room, covered in a thick eiderdown quilt atop which ruffled pillows sat, four a side. A dresser on four curved legs provided an enormous arc of mirrors, bent at an angle so that one could sit and see virtually their entire head.

Hanging from the ceiling, in the centre of a mosaic sculpted from plaster and cowling a small chandelier cast a warm glow down, only as far as the dimensions of the bed. In darkness off to the far side was the adjoining bathroom and to the other, a walk-in wardrobe that could well have been space for a bunk or two had it been down in Steerage. Isabelle frowned as she finished taking in the fine suite, noticing it appeared little different to the very brief tour she'd been given during the ship's outfitting by its builders, Harland & Wolff.

It was an unfortunate reflection on means that Third-Class passengers, or "cattle" as they were sometimes referred to by a ship's crew, often arrived with little more than the clothes on their back. The ship's most welcome guests, however, frequently arrived with so many cases and personal items that their already lavishly-equipped suites were filled to bursting point. In the modern era of the very beginning of the 20th Century, the status of a person was as easy to see as glancing at the collection of ornaments they placed on their dresser.

There were no ornaments on Anastacia's dresser and the walk-in wardrobe held only a few items of clothing, in a space designed for a "summer", "winter" and "formal" collection of dozens. A matching set of three red luggage trunks, stacked one on top of the other sat tucked away in a corner but that aside, there was little in the way of a personal touch – Isabelle had managed to personalise her own bunk-and-drawer to a greater standard.

Eventually, Isabelle realised she was doing nothing more than standing on the spot, shivering slightly and looking bemused. Anastacia for her part did precisely the same, standing near the bed and looking more than a little awkward. "I suppose we should undress …"

"Suppose so," The Stoker echoed, not bothering to move apart from glancing towards the bathroom. Isabelle wanted closeness, wanted to be next to the blonde but now that the imminent threat to life-and-limb had subsided, the frustrating barrier of self-consciousness had apparently been given enough time from the engineering decks to the cabins to rebuild itself.

Still, the taller woman made no obvious move towards the bathroom, either.

"Are you nervous?" She asked suddenly. Isabelle nodded slowly, a smile on her face as she tried to suppress the urge to laugh. "Yeah … I suppose I am. You dragged me out from floodwaters, saved my life and now I'm standing here worried about showing you a little flesh ..."

Anastacia swallowed nervously and Isabelle could see her fidgeting, for the first time that her mind could recall. Lithe fingers played with each other, covering and uncovering knuckles, locking together and tugging at damp sleeves. Several times she made to speak, but there were no words following from her parted lips and instead she looked away. Eventually she found the words but could not speak them aloud and maintain eye contact.

"I am ashamed," She whispered, back presented to the other woman. " … Of what I look like."

Isabelle stepped across the distance between and laid her hands on Anastacia's biceps, resting her chin on a pale shoulder. "Army stories?" She whispered, to which the taller woman simply nodded. "Did your wooden leg stop you dragging my ass backwards through waist-deep water?"

Anastacia's head flew round, eyes narrowed and anger palpable on her face and by the way she tensed in Isabelle's hands. Having no desire to let the good Doctor weigh in, she continued on. "Answer the question, Miss Nizhardrie. Did it stop you?"

Admittedly playing a dangerous game, the Stoker watched clouded blue eyes regard her very carefully. "No ..." She said eventually. Isabelle offered the woman in her arms a wide smile and leaned in, hopeful she'd be forgiven enough to lay a kiss on her forehead. Pressing her lips against the soft skin, she pulled back only enough so that she could draw air into her mouth to whisper.

"Did the scars stop me kissing you?"

Easing Anastacia around so they came together face-to-face, Isabelle ran a hand through the soaked blonde hair still stuck fast to the side of the taller woman's face, gently pulling it through her fingers. "You're just like this ship, Anna … You and her share the same fundamental truth. Do you know what that is?

Any anger left on the blonde's face had given way to confusion and all she could do was shake her head stiffly. Isabelle smiled, pulling Anastacia into a tight hug and kissing her on the temple. "You're both flawless, you're both more than the sum of your parts and you'll both never be forgotten ..."

"My ship and my girl are both perfect."

Isabelle felt her charge move away and relinquishing the hold, watched Anastacia step back – chin and face tipped down towards the decking. Slowly, very slowly, her hands came up and fumbled with the top-most button of her petticoat, struggling to do the delicate work as they trembled. The second and third button followed thereafter and she shrugged her shoulders, dropping the damp blue coat to the floor.

Just as slowly, shining cobalt eyes tracked up to meet the caring brown opposite. Not wishing to leave it all up to Anastacia, Isabelle took hold of her own wet shirt, wrenching it over her head and throwing it to the decking to be utterly forgotten about. With a trembling hand Anastacia pulled each of the straps of her dress over her shoulder, reaching behind effortlessly and tugging the zip downwards. Save a corset bound tightly around her chest, the blonde stepped free of the dress as it dropped to the floor; splaying out like the dew-soaked petals of a flower turning to the morning sun.

Isabelle pushed her trousers down beyond her knees and kicked them away to the wall, clad now in nothing more than a camisole. Reaching around behind her back once again, Anastacia pulled free the knot at the base of the corset's elaborate lacing and stepped into the other woman's embrace.

"Help me ..." She whispered, turning her head to the side as Isabelle swept around behind her and nuzzled her lips along the line of her jaw. Isabelle's hands ran down the shoulders and sides of the lithe body at her fingertips, meeting together to begun to gently pull and twist on the lacing that crossed and re-crossed over itself a half-dozen times. She continued to plant butterfly kisses against the porcelain skin so close to her own, deftly working the lace and fabric until she felt the corset unfold in her hands.

Anastacia held it in place over her chest with one arm, using her free hand to pull Isabelle by the fingertips towards the bed. As she slid onto the mattress she gave her hand an abrupt pull, jerking Isabelle forward so that she fell on top. Straddling the blonde she flashed a toothy grin, reaching down to lightly pin the other woman's wrists up by her head. "Perfection ..." She breathed, leaning in to meet Anastacia's lips with her own.

There was no tentativeness this time and the pressure was bruising, a sum of all the pain and pleasure one could build up over a lifetime or two. Each took their turn to push forward, push harder, exploring intimately and breaking only for the rushed breath or the struggling gasp. Their bodies began to move together; grinding, rubbing. It was Isabelle that broke the contact first, despite Anastacia's best efforts to hold her in the kiss with the slightest tug of teeth against her retreating lips.

Those lips retreated only as far as the nape of Anastacia's neck, picking a path of kisses that trailed along the shoulder blade and dipped towards the swell of her chest. Isabelle's hand came up to wrap around the top of the corset still sat loosely in place, testing Anastacia's comfortableness by tugging on it gently. She nodded, silently, and Isabelle understood. Carefully dragging it across, eliciting a moan from the woman below as the material rubbed against inflamed, aroused flesh, she continued her exploratory kissing.

Her lips dived into the valley providing the swell of cleavage that opened out, rounding up to cream-coloured breasts; a single engorged crown of dark pink standing to attention on each, straining to be acknowledged; to be touched and given attention. Isabelle continued her gentle ministries, deliberately avoiding climbing to the peak of the breast and instead circling, teasing even as Anastacia arched her back up off the mattress.

The groans and gasps from above finally pushed Isabelle over the edge of her mischievousness and in a tribute to their first, impossibly brief kiss, her tongue darted out to skim the very top of the nipple. The reaction was as if the contact had been anything but fleeting, as the blonde bucked up and shuddered. Isabelle's fingers crept up on the opposite side to her lips and began to squeeze at the breast, fully hers as it was to devour. She ran her tongue over the painfully-hard nub, adapting to the way Anastacia pushed herself up to offer ever more of it.

"I think you've been teased enough ..." Isabelle grinned, lowering her head and wrapping her lips about the nipple that begged and pleaded for the attention. Anastacia squeezed her eyes shut, mouth arcing open though there was no breath in her lungs with which to cry out. Chest rising and falling rapidly, she dug her fingers into the eiderdown beneath. Some rational part of her consciousness, still trying to retain some sort of control, tried to clamp her mouth closed but Isabelle's attentions swept each attempt away.

Anastacia collapsed back to the mattress, only after Isabelle's lips finally pulled away and her muscles demanded a moment's rest. She could feel the grazing touch of the other woman's mouth as it skirted her naval, forcing her to twitch and fidget under the attention.

"Someone's ticklish ..." Isabelle grinned wickedly, pouting her lips and blowing lightly against the skin of the taller woman's stomach and the light scars that criss-crossed it. Anastacia squirmed, shifting from side to side as she tried to keep the smile from her face. "Stop it ..." She pleaded, trying and failing utterly to sound serious and authoritative.

"Okay," Isabelle grinned, shrugging her shoulders, "But only because you sound so very serious ..."

Anastacia kept her eyes firmly shut, gasping as she felt those terribly teasing lips move ever further south. Quite unexpectedly, to her anyway, the kisses veered away and began to trace down her left thigh. Isabelle could feel the shortened muscle underneath tense, the other woman's body almost imperceptibly shifting down in a subconscious attempt to keep Isabelle's attention focused further up.

She was nothing if not persistent however, and a tanned hand reached up to take in pale fingertips and squeeze them tightly. "You're perfect ..." She whispered, trying to soothe the fear she knew was bubbling so close to the surface. "Let me prove it ..."

Isabelle held her lips still for a moment, waiting for some sort of response or refusal but felt only a strong pressure in her hand as Anastacia squeezed her fingers tightly. The muscle in the blonde's thigh relaxed, and the upper leg settled back down on the mattress. Quite apart from the beauty of the body she tended to, Isabelle found herself fascinated with the prosthetic she now gazed over.

She marvelled at the calf and shin, sculpted so perfectly from Willow's wood that it matched the contours of the opposite leg as if it were god-given, rather than machined to replace. Shining brass joints connected the carved foot-piece to the rest of the limb and allowed the "ankle" to pivot, making the action of walking that much easier. Her fingers ran along the wood, up to touch the black leather straps that held the prosthetic tightly against Anastacia's knee. Leaning down, she planted a kiss against the wood and began to climb back up.

Anastacia wiped at her eyes, turning her head to the side and trying to resist the urge to suck in a noisy breath. Her tears would not be denied however, and they simply fell silently across her alabaster cheeks, dropping to stain the eiderdown beneath.

"Are you okay?" A voice whispered, muffled by the fact it talked half-against the soft skin it continued to kiss. Anastacia nodded, placing a palm against the side of Isabelle's face and running it down to her tapering chin. "I am wonderful ..."

Working her way back up from the knee, to the thigh and then across Isabelle gently blew her breath against the handful of blonde curls that marked the way to the beautiful Russian's core. Anastacia sighed, a shiver passing through her being as she felt the contact and the pressure. Glancing up towards the blue eyes so very far away and resting on pillows, Isabelle smiled and stretched a hand as far up as she could; a fingertip beginning to mark a trail from the swell of Anastacia's breasts down, over engorged, pointed nipples and around a ticklish, sensitive navel.

That same fingertip drew a spiral pattern or two over the very top of her leg, skirting the skin of the inner thigh as Isabelle's head dipped downwards, wrinkling her nose as the curls tickled it lightly. As well as the ship's generators could turn the movement of turbines into electricity, so could Anastacia's centre take all the passion, all the excitement and teasing and convert it into fantastic heat that bathed the other woman's features as she dared to explore its boundaries.

Arcing her back off the mattress, Anastacia's fingers scratched and clawed at the eiderdown, hips pushing down as Isabelle's lone finger grew bored of the patterns it traced, slipping over the inner thigh to join the explorations. Having stretched the teasing, heightened the anticipation and prolonged the pleasing torture, Isabelle pushed aside the inner folds of the blonde's centre – leaning in to enjoy the sweetness and claim her prize.

This time Anastacia's lungs were full, able and willing to lend her voice the power it needed to express the sensation of being filled. Her cry merely spurred Isabelle on and she pressed deeper, free hand sliding underneath the shapely rear at her fingertips to squeeze and pull. Anastacia's breathing quickly became ragged, chest falling into rhythm with Isabelle's pressing, stretching, pleasuring.

"I … Isabelle …" The blonde managed through breathless whispers, turning her head from one side to the other as she began to feel the heat spreading out from her thighs; climbing to warm the pit of her gut. The other woman smiled as best she could, lips quite preoccupied with lapping at the flushed, sweet folds. "I can feel it; I feel you ..."

Moving her lips up slightly, setting her focus and her tongue against the engorged nub standing proudly at the arch of Anastacia's softness, Isabelle's fingers gently pushed further, beginning a steady rhythm as she formed a seal with her lips and began to pull at the hot flesh. The hand cupping the shapely rear beneath quickly jerked away to help Isabelle steady herself, the hips she worked on bucking and twisting.

Anastacia's shoulders tensed as she felt the most incredible thrill begin to permeate her body, a current of pleasure that seemed to be gathering its strength, pulling together the waters from the beach before it came crashing back onto the shore. As if a fire had been lit between her thighs the raw heat acted as a boiler of sorts, warming first her stomach and then moving both upwards and down; along to the tip of her toe that curled in reflexively.

The currents were coming together as Isabelle worked lovingly on the taller woman's centre, her pace quickening now as the folds were stretched ever-more, ever-faster. Anastacia began to rock her hips forwards in time, making each thrust twice as rewarding at the cost of making the next one that much more anticipated. Anastacia found that for all the trembling anticipation she felt, whatever it was that was growing and building inside had a hunger all of its own. It demanded she thrust, it needed Isabelle to push deeper – it desired above all else to come into existence; consuming all five senses and stealing Anastacia's consciousness.

Self control was a powerful barrier but it could hold back the flood of emotion for only so long, and that time had come now. Feeling the folds she lapped and kissed draw in tightly around her fingertips, Isabelle knew the time had come. With a final effort she pushed in deeply, as deeply as she could comfortably be, providing the surging wave that broke through the wall.

Anastacia threw her head back, the heat that permeated her body setting fire to the veins themselves; blood boiling in climax and carrying the passion to her heart that crashed and pulled and battered against her ribs, desperately seeking to escape the overwhelming energy. Anastacia's chest held firm, even as her hands found Isabelle's head; fingertips running through the raven-coloured locks randomly, without guidance as her greater senses were blinded to everything save the high.

Reservations, etiquette, logic and good common-sense were made of stern stuff but they were ripped from their psychological foundations, washed away in the pleasure that made her skin tingle and flush. Anastacia tried to blink away stars, as real as if she stood on the promenade deck and simply glanced up, struggling to focus on anything more than the patterns of light that twisted and warped the ceiling. The great fire set by Isabelle had burned brightly for a single moment, leaving the blood in her veins to smoulder as it receded.

With a single long sigh, Anastacia's shoulders slumped and she relaxed to the mattress. Her face framed by the long blonde tresses that had worked free during her exertions, she weakly held out a hand for Isabelle to take hold of and pulled the other woman up to her side. Silently she shuffled closer until their bodies and lips met, still-trembling fingers cradling Isabelle by the small of her back.

"Are you okay?" Isabelle whispered, brushing a kiss against the blonde hair tickling her chin. Anastacia turned her head, so that the tips of their noses met and smiled. "I am perfect ..."

Isabelle set her jaw on Anastacia's shoulder and pulled her in closely. "You really are," She whispered.

A loud rapping at the door broke the intimacy and Anastacia drew away, getting no further than swinging her legs up and over the edge of the bed when the door handle jerked down. A series of thuds reverberated around the room as the door flexed under the weight of a body against it. Flinging herself onto her stomach, Isabelle retrieved her camisole and quickly slipped it over her head.

Straining her ears as she pushed herself up to her feet awkwardly, Anastacia could hear jangling and the scraping of metal-against metal as a key was forced into the lock. Almost tearing a dressing gown in half as she snatched it from the bedside hook, the blonde pulled it about herself as the door swung open; admitting a young man dressed in the cream-coloured jacket of a White Star Line Steward.

"Terribly sorry to bother you Ma'am," He stammered unsteadily, his eyes searching the room with something approaching franticness. The harsh words on Anastacia's lips melted away as the crew man sprinted towards the walk-in wardrobe, his eyes never even passing over Isabelle who now sat under the covers of the bed, wearing an angry scowl on her face.

Reaching up on the tips of his toes towards the parcel shelf running around the very top of the wardrobe, the Steward grunted and stumbled backwards – hauling two bulky, white life jackets down and onto the carpeted floor with a thump. Dropping to one knee he fished them up and laid both on the empty side of the bed, turning back towards the door. "Please put them on and move up to the Promenade Deck."

"As quickly as you can Ma'am!" He urged, fumbling with the keys he still held in his hand as he pulled the door closed and immediately rapped against the suite opposite. Cocking her head to the side, Anastacia frowned deeply, turning back towards the bed. "Something is wrong ..."

Isabelle threw the covers away, climbing to her feet and heading over towards the trousers she'd abandoned earlier. The Stoker froze half-way, her brow furrowing as she sank to her knees and tipped her ear towards the deck. "I can't hear the her moving ..."

Watching the scar over Anastacia's eye climb, Isabelle offered her a wink. "She's well put-together but when the screws are turning, there's a vibration. Spend enough time in the Engine Room and you'll commit to memory … Anyway, I can't hear it."

"The watertight door closed ..." The blonde nodded, her eyes unfocused as she recalled the flooding and the near-drowning of earlier. "There was a warning bell, which could only sound if the order to close had come from the Bridge – Individual doors can only be sealed locally. All compartments must therefore be sealed."

"Sounds about right," Isabelle agreed, sweeping up her trousers. "I'd better get down below."

Anastacia nodded, setting about looking for clothing more appropriate than a silken dressing gown. "There may be casualties; I will do what I can to assist the ship's infirmary."

"Can you assist me?" Isabelle grimaced, holding up her bottoms and gesturing to the water still dripping from the fabric. Rolling her blue eyes, Anastacia stepped over to the top-most luggage trunk and swung it open. Rooting around until she pulled out a cotton vest and a simple pair of navy-blue trousers, she threw it the short distance over to Isabelle.

Making short work of getting dressed, Isabelle came up behind the taller woman and snaked an arm around her waist. "Be careful," She whispered, planting a kiss against Anastacia's soft lips.

"Only if you do the same," She replied evenly. Isabelle nodded, heading for the door as she pulled the vest over her head. "It's a promise," She nodded, before slipping between the door and the frame and disappearing into the corridor beyond.

* * *

The smile on Isabelle's face that had been so hard won was gradually chipped away, worn down by the frowns and the panicked glances she saw pass her by – almost invariably from those in the service of the White Star Line, rather than fare-paying passengers who rather than worried, seemed more annoyed to have been roused in the middle of the night.

As she descended through the myriad decks of the great Olympic-class ocean liner the confusion only increased, as one got further from the ship's Bridge and her commanding officers Isabelle presumed. Whereby the First and Second-class passengers had all been gently woken, helped into their life jackets and marshalled upstairs there was hardly such help for those in Steerage. What few were awake stood in the halls, shrugging their shoulders at each other or simply unable to speak the language and ask.

The brass-plated clock above the doorway to the Reciprocating Engine Room ticked a little beyond half past twelve in the morning, as Isabelle squeezed past the bodies frantically rushing between gantries. One such body, with cuffs sporting several yellow braids, pushed past several others and almost crashed into her. A strong hand planted itself on the Stoker's shoulder, alongside the slightest curling of lips beneath a wide moustache.

"Izzy!" Joseph sighed in relief, suddenly looking a little awkward with himself and coughing as if to restore his evenness. "Good thing you got out of Number Six in time. It's bloody hard to find a good Coal Monkey nowadays."

Offering the older man a smile, Isabelle nodded and squeezed the hand back. "I saw a lot of panicked faces above-decks … I'm assuming you know why?"

Joseph nodded slowly, reluctant to confirm what he knew as if keeping it a secret might simply keep it from happening. Pulling his service cap from his head, he scratched at the hair underneath. "We crashed our starboard side along a Berg."

Isabelle had a dozen questions to ask at once; how could a ship as sophisticated as Titanic run so blindly into trouble? How could anything large enough to damage the ship be missed until the last, critical second? How was it going to look – for all of them – when Titanic was towed past the State of Liberty by tug?

Then her memory caught up with her irritation and supplied several key facts; the flooding of Boiler Room Number Six, the passengers gathering in lifejackets … Surely a mere precaution, the reaction of good, old-fashioned, reliable British preparedness?

"We took on water," She muttered, watching the ship's Chief Engineer simply nod. "We're still taking on water …" Joseph admitted, shaking his head slightly as he too were struggling to believe the fundamental truth of their situation. Isabelle swallowed nervously, unwilling to ask the question but unable to continue any further without the answer.

"How much?" She breathed.

If it were examined only as a curiosity, it was amazing to note how much body language could convey before a voice was added. Isabelle therefore knew the answer before Joseph ever told her, world-famous British stoicism in the face of adversity neither covering the truth completely or changing the simple facts.

"Enough to make it a matter of when, rather than if," He sighed. "Four compartments are lost to the sea and a fifth is flooding now. She'll go down by the head and once the water reaches the top of the bulkheads on "E" Deck, they'll spill over … and that'll be that. The greatest ship ever built and her fate is a simple matter of school-room mathematics – a certainty."

"What about the pumps-" Isabelle began, before her superior's harsh tone cut in suddenly. "They can't hold back the sea, lady! You'd have better luck getting a bucket and trying to bail out the ship with your bare hands!"

Joseph turned his head, glancing up at the shining, multi-storey pistons held locked in place. For the first time in over five years' sailing together, Isabelle heard genuine sadness in the Officer's voice. "In a few hours, Izzy, this'll all be at the bottom of the North Atlantic … Along with some of us, I'd wager. You know the lifeboat situation?"

Isabelle nodded dumbly, the full gravity of the situation beginning to unfold. With twenty five lifeboats stowed aboard and assuming each left fully loaded, only one thousand, one hundred and fifty eight souls by her count would find a place from a total embarked crew and passenger count of two thousand two hundred and twenty eight. As Joseph had said … A simple matter of school-room mathematics.

Joseph stepped away towards a bank of gauges, scrutinising the needles as they passed into the areas of their meters marked with red, beginning to fluctuate and vibrate frantically. "When I came down from the Bridge they were just beginning to prepare to lower the first boat," He muttered, glancing up at the clock over the doorway. "They should be well ahead with the rigging for the others by now. Finally earning their wage, at least."

Twisting a control valve nearby, splitting his attention between the wheel and the gauges, he wiped at the sheen of sweat sticking to his brow. "The pumps can't save us, but they can buy us time – water's coming in through popped rivet holes but we're keeping pace with the flooding in the fifth compartment … For now, at least."

Joseph's eyes fell onto his cuffs, fingers tracing the yellow bands and the authority they represented. He sucked in a great breath, puffing his cheeks out. "So long as a part of this ship's still above the waterline, no-one has to take their chances jumping overboard. We keep her sailing until she can't sail any more ..."

Easier to bury herself in the problem than be forced to accept the ultimate futility of any answer she could provide, Isabelle nodded. "We might be able to push the pumps, find an extra few hundred gallons' capacity from somewhere ..."

"That's the kind of thinking that makes an officer," Joseph half-smiled, turning back to face the Stoker. "Besides which I don't think there's much use for you shovelling coal, these engines won't ever run ahead again. See what you can do with the pumps ..."

"Izzy!" He shouted, just as she turned to leave. The Chief Engineer of the RMS Titanic struggled to find the words, taking several moments to compose himself as his lips flexed, teeth baring in frustration. Eventually, he took a long breath and found what it was he wished to say.

"Don't bloody well let me catch you on my ship after the last boat's away, do you understand me?"

Isabelle nodded, disappearing into the mass of shining pipes, enormous pistons and the myriad valves required to propel a ship through the seas. None of these shining pipes, enormous pistons or valves would be required for the Titanic's journey to the silt and darkness of the bottom of the North Altlantic. Reaching into the folds of his duty jacket, Joseph pulled free a shining pocket watch secured to the pocket by a length of chain. Rubbing his finger absent-mindedly along its golden cover, his thoughts turned to darker things.

Joseph G. Bell felt certain, there and then, that he would accompany the greatest ship ever conceived on its journey; downwards from the world of men, above.

* * *

Charles Lightoller and Harold Lowe, Titanic's Second and Fifth Officer respectively, struggled to be heard over the tremendous din of the ship's funnels, as they vented vast clouds of super-heated steam out into the freezing night sky. While the engines continued to run to provide shipboard power, without the enormous bulk of the propellers to turn the entire system generated vast quantities of steam which sat uselessly, building up to dangerous pressures.

The only safe way to deal with such pressure was to create an almighty din by venting it to atmosphere, sending enormous trails of white up into the blackness. Tearing his eyes away from the funnels, he glanced across at the enlisted men busily turning cranks and pulling yards of rope free of the davits holding Lifeboat Seven in place. "Mister Lowe! Women and Children first!"

The Welsh-born junior officer nodded, swallowing nervously as he glanced about himself. Through the large, multi-panel glass windows ahead he could see the majority of the passengers sat inside the ship's superstructure, mostly looking irritated with what few of them had bothered to put on their life jackets simply looking bemused.

Pushing open the door, still accustomed to the roar of the funnels outside his voice rolled across the hallway like a deafening peal. "Right everyone, listen! I need you to step outside onto the Promenade Deck! Leave your drinks inside please!"

"Is this strictly necessary?" An older woman sighed, wearing a fluffy mink-coat over her life jacket and nursing the dregs of a brandy in her glass. Rolling her eyes, she swallowed the remainder and set it down on the table. "Fine! Fine!" She shrugged, "Let's get this silly nonsense out of the way so I can return to my suite!"

Lowe watched, somewhat in disbelief as only a dozen bothered to come forward. The remainder simply continued to sip their drinks, recline in their padded chairs or simply stand and admire the "drills" going on outside, through the windows. Gritting his teeth together, he felt his patience wearing dangerously thin.

"Everyone out, right now!" He roared. "Put your glasses down and step onto the Promenade Deck immediately!"

Slowly, they complied with much tutting and sighing and complaining.

Lightoller set his boot on the ledge of Lifeboat Seven's port side and pushed, grunting with the effort as it came free of the ship's superstructure and began to sway gently on the end of its lines. Sweeping around he watched Fifth Officer Lowe lead the first group of passengers out from the warmth of inside, and he could see from the expressions on their faces that not one of them comprehended what was happening.

"We're not getting in that! Surely not!" One woman cried, aghast at the very thought. Better they thought this some drill than their possible deaths, Lightoller considered grimly. "Bring forward the women!" He shouted, struggling to be heard above the escaping steam above. "Into the boat, now! As quickly as you can! Please! As quickly as you can!"

Lowe stepped down from the Lifeboat and carefully back onto the deck, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard as he shouted for Lightoller's attention. "I heard word from the Wireless Room, Sir; RMS Carpathia's steaming south, making seventeen knots flat-out."

Titanic's Second Officer felt his shoulders slump in relief, at what was probably the first piece of good news he could recall hearing that night. "How long until they arrive, Mister Lowe?"

The tightness to the younger man's features suggested the news to be no better than anything else he'd heard, as the Fifth Officer shook his head. "Expected by four this morning ..."

The first thing Lightoller did was to glance down at his watch, swallowing nervously. Twenty to one.

* * *

Anastacia finished rolling her sleeves up and tugging the gloves onto her hands, dipping them into the carbolic acid mixture and shaking dry. The ship's Chief Surgeon Doctor O'Laughlin had been only too willing to make use of her training and profession, especially when it became clear that several survivors from the ship's flooded furnace rooms were too ill to be moved up to the infirmary.

While the overall atmosphere was calm, how that calmness was interpreted took two wildly different diversions. Passengers continued to amble in, some sporting top hats and tails and complaining of sniffles, chills and other ailments caused by having to stand out on the Promenade Deck in the freezing temperatures of the very early morning. A few came to her asking for sleeping aids, preferring to take a pill or swallow a powder so they could sleep through what they perceived to be a pointless waste of time.

Then there were the crewmen who stumbled in with steam burns across their faces and fear in their eyes, deep in shock so that they did not even twitch as she applied the painful, burning disinfectant required to cleanse their raw flesh. Anastacia bandaged others' palms, where heavy ropes and the action of friction had burned and rubbed their skin to blister. Some sat on the beds, hugging themselves and muttering, turning away whenever she tried to coax them to talk.

Others levered themselves up as soon as she had finished and bound for the doorway, disappearing into the bowels of the ship.

Anastacia crossed to a middle-aged man sitting upright on a bed, cradling his left arm protectively as he gritted his teeth. Rubbing a free hand through his cropped black hair, the crewman looked up at Anastacia and frowned. "You're a lot better lookin' than Doc O'Laughlin …"

"I am Doctor Nizhardrie," She replied coolly. "What happened to your arm?"

"I was manning one of the davits on the port-forward side," He shrugged. "Must still have been some ice on deck, cause next think I know I'm flat on my stomach – broke the fall with my shoulder. Should've used my head."

"May I examine it?" She asked, extending her gloved hands. The crewman nodded, gritting his teeth as he gingerly lowered his forearm into her grasp. Gently easing her fingertips along the arm, pressing lightly at points and noting the flash of pain wherever it appeared as she moved up towards the shoulder, Anastacia stepped back and over to a storage cupboard. "I believe you have a dislocation … I will have to sedate you before I can treat it."

"Nothing that'll put me on my arse," The crewman grumbled with a shake of his head. "I need to get back on deck, not unless those top hat-wearing Toffs are gonna' start launching their own boats. Just pop it back in."

Anastacia cocked her head to the side, "You realise that will cause significant pain?"

"My wife loves to shop," The Sailor half-smiled, grimacing as his shoulder shifted. "I'm used to significant pain."

Anastacia nodded, taking a very gentle hold of the man's left arm just above the elbow and holding her free hand just above his shoulder blade. "I will count to three – you will feel a sharp pain. Try not to anticipate the setting."

"Just do what you gotta' do, Doc," He muttered, closing his eyes. Narrowing her own in concentration, mapping out the joint in her mind's eye, she found the path it would need to take. "One ..." Anastacia began, "Two ..."

Without bothering to wait for three, the blonde clenched down on the arm and twisted it, easily applying enough force to reset the joint before the muscles surrounding his shoulder could contract in response to her touch. "Jesus Christ!" He hissed, doubling over and clutching the top of his reset arm with a free hand.

Taking a few seconds, mostly to breathe, he tilted his head up towards the ceiling and nodded. Flexing the numb fingers on his left hand, he gingerly circled his shoulder. "That's the ticket, Doc ..."

Hopping down from the bed, he scooped up his White Star Line bonnet from the mattress. "The name's Richardson, by the way. If you need a boat, I'll be on the port-forward side … Don't leave it too long, Miss Nizhadrie."

Anastacia nodded, watching the crewman disappear through the doorway. Taking a quick glance around to make sure no new patients had appeared, she snatched up a brown glass bottle – one of dozens stored on shelves stretching across the infirmary – and turned it on its side. Laying it against the top of the desk nearby, she pulled her hand back and watched it begin to roll, gathering speed until it dropped clear of the end and into her waiting palm.

The North Atlantic would only be denied so long.

* * *

Titanic's Chief Officer Henry Tingle Wilde gave one final glance at each of the davits, checking the ropes passing over each one as they swung out to support the enormous weight of the white-hulled lifeboat. The air of calm that had permeated the passengers crowding about him was dissolving now, as the ship's list became too obvious to ignore, or write off as an absurdly-timed drill. The frigid waters of the North Atlantic lapped only five or so feet below the end of the bow now, and would surely start to come over the top of in the next few minutes.

Forcing himself to focus, Wilde turned towards the passengers bunched together and stepped forwards. "Sir!" He shouted, trying to grasp the attention of an older man garbed in a top hat, overcoat and scarf. The gentleman stood with his arms around what Wilde presumed to be his wife, tears running red tracks along her cheeks as she sobbed against his shoulder. Between them, clutching both, a young girl cried and sniffled.

"Sir!" Wilde shouted again, as the gentleman glanced up. "Sir I can take your family, now! Please, let them come with me!"

He nodded, managing to hold back his own tears as he took a hold of his wife by the shoulders, bringing his lips against her forehead. Pulling away he dropped down to one knee, extending his arms out and grasping hold of the little girl as she ran into her father with almost enough force to bowl him over.

"Don't leave me, Daddy!" She pleaded between heartfelt sobs. "I don't want you to go!"

The gentleman sucked in a deep breath, determined not to show his daughter the fear that filled his entire being. He smiled widely, nodding. "Daddy will be fine, sweetness; this is isn't the Daddies' boat ..."

He glanced up as she began to cry anew, his watery eyes fixing on Wilde's. "The nice officer will make sure the Daddies get on a boat after the Mummies and Children do."

The little girl sniffed, turning around and glancing up at Henry. "Promise you'll help my Daddy!"

Wilde hesitated for a moment, feeling the most absurd reluctance to tell this child something that would almost certainly turn out to be a lie. It was a simple matter of numbers; he couldn't save them all. He couldn't save them all.

"I promise," He nodded, eventually. The little girl shared another hug from her father, before being swept up in his arms and handed over to Wilde. Carefully taking her into his care, the Chief Officer watched the girl's mother step weakly, unsteadily onto the swinging lifeboat. Trying and only half-succeeding in stifling her own tears, she held out her arms as Henry cradled the girl's head and leaned over; setting the child down on her mother's lap.

Stepping back onto the deck and taking a steadying breath, Wilde stretched his hands up into the air. "Both sides, lower away together!" He shouted, the sailors manning the davits beginning the business of feeding more rope to the pulleys. The lifeboat twisted and swung on the end of her lines as she began to lower, awkwardly.

Each side took their cue from one of Henry's hands, as they swung down from his head to level with his shoulder. "Easy does it now! Easy lads, lower away! Both sides together!"

Further forward of the davits, the freezing ocean that had promised to claim the RMS Titanic spilled over her bow railings, lapping against the deck lazily.

* * *

Isabelle took hold of the heavy pipe above her head and used it to haul herself up, stretching her back and grimacing as she stepped around the motor casing, over to the control panel mounted against the bulkhead. "Here goes nothing ..." She shrugged, taking hold of the breaker lever and pulling it down with a hefty tug.

A loud sputtering coughed into life, joining the general roar of the machine space and the multiple pumps already flat-out in their duty to stop the impossible. Leaning into the housing to listen, Isabelle frowned and snatched up the wrench she'd laid on the deck. Pushing its jaw into the top-most nut, gritting her teeth together, she hauled the wrench handle towards herself – pulling until the puttering steadied and grew to a reasonable roar.

Wiping at the sweat and grime coating her forehead, Isabelle could do no more. By her rough-and-ready calculations, the extra pump – designed to empty bilge but pressed into life or death service – had probably bought the ship two, perhaps three extra minutes above the waves, if that. Lacking the powers of God Almighty Isabelle had no recourse to lifting the hull out of the water with her bare hands and so, two or three minutes would have to do. Perhaps to someone, somewhere on the ship it would be the difference between living and dying.

Even if it were the latter, then it would still be two or three minutes of life.

The ship's corridors were heaving with people now, as she made her way back to the Engine Room. The bizarre, almost jovial atmosphere had given way to a building panic, as passengers desperately made their way above-deck. The ship's list grew ever more severe and Isabelle found it hard work simply making her way aft, as the Titanic's bow slipped ever deeper under the North Atlantic.

A group of men, perhaps First or Second Class passengers by their formal wear, sprinted around a corner and crashed into a young woman from Steerage, knocking her to the decking without ever bothering to glance down in their panic. Isabelle dropped to one knee, reaching forwards to help the girl back to her feet when she rolled onto her front. Green eyes wild, she scrambled up the wall and to her feet, spinning away and running after those who'd knocked her down without ever even acknowledging Isabelle.

Feeling the urgency building, her pace became faster; skipping steps three-a-time as she bounded down the staircase connecting to "F" Deck. Isabelle froze as the soles of her boots left the final step and splashed unexpectedly through water. Glancing down at her feet, she turned on the spot and ran – ran as fast as her tired legs could carry her.

Eventually Isabelle climbed far enough aft that the flood waters were left behind and she leaned over, hands braced against her knees as she tried to catch her breath. From somewhere far forwards, a terrible groaning reverberated; the sound of metal being pushed beyond the capacity to endure, as the Titanic's forward-most compartments were buckled and dented outwards by the terrific pressure brought to bear by the sea.

The great ship was struggling, being squeezed ever tighter, being dragged ever further down.

* * *

Joseph snatched up his service cap, gazing at the golden anchor motif and allowing a small smile to spread over his features. It had been a good decade or two since he'd finally earned the right to wear it and just one braid around his cuff, but the pride had stayed with him all through the years. Deep within himself he knew, confidently enough to tell it to God should said Alpha and the Omega appear to ask, that he worked as hard now as on the first day of employment with the White Star Line.

Fitting it atop his head, where it should be, Bell walked down the gantry, slapping each of his men on the back as he went. "You've done your duty, lads!" He called, nodding in approval. "Time to make a run for it on the Lord's good grace and privilege! Get up top and find yourselves a boat!"

A few nodded and broke into a jog, while others hesitated, half-stepping away. "I'd wager the telegraphs won't be getting any new orders," Joseph chuckled, pointing over to the massive, brass-plated cylinders that had remained idle at "All Stop" since the impact over an hour earlier. "Away you go! Clear off the bloody lot of you!"

Still breathing heavily from her exertions and the hard work the ship's increasing list made of simply moving from one compartment to the next, Isabelle stamped up the gantry. "What's the ship's Chief Engineer going to do without any engines to run?" She wheezed.

Wheeling around, a bemused look on his face, Bell shrugged and gestured over his shoulders. "The Chief Engineer's going to make sure the lights stay on so you're able to find your way up to the boats and get off my ship, understand?"

Isabelle opened her mouth to retort, but Joseph cut her off immediately. "One of the great things about the braids on my cuffs and the hat on my head is I don't need to explain myself; something I've never done unless the person asking the questions has more stripes. I don't even see one on you to my four ..."

Working his way along the gantry towards her, Joseph suddenly pulled Isabelle into a bone-crushing hug, his hand cradling the back of her head as he did so. "You listen to me, Towers," He whispered into her ear. " … And you listen good. You're going to find yourself a boat up above, a nice empty one so you can stretch your legs out along with your Ladyfriend, the good Doctor Nizhadrie. You get yourself back home and get yourself some stripes. You hold that insufferable temper in check, learn how to take a punch and roll ..."

"Who knows," He laughed, stepping back and releasing Isabelle. "If the good Lieutenant Crawford survives, he might end up your Chief Engineer and something tells me I won't be around to stop him throwing you overboard … Or you him. Learn to get a grip of yourself and not someone else's collar, just before you throw them over a table. Got it?"

Isabelle nodded, struggling to find the words. She desperately wished she could find some elegant speech, some moving dialogue that would convince the old man to give up what was equal parts duty, honour and madness and come with her, to at least try for safety. The hard gaze that met her misty eyes put paid to any hope of convincing him otherwise, and she nodded again, dumbly.

"She's quite a looker, you know ..." Joseph mused suddenly. "Your young Doctor," He clarified as Isabelle frowned. "I've always preferred blondes. Take good care of that one."

" I will ..." She managed, coughing back the tears. "Let's be having none of that," He soothed, laying a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. Off you bloody well go now! Get out of my Engine Room and go find your Lady!"

Isabelle reluctantly – very reluctantly – backed away and turned. Wiping the back of her sleeve against her eyes, she set off through the doorway that would eventually lead back up to "E" Deck. Shifting around to stare up at the enormous pistons stretching for thirty plus feet into the air, Joseph G. Bell patted the handrail at his side.

"Just you and me now, old girl …" He sighed. "We'll keep the lights on as long as we can, eh?"


	7. Chapter VII : Adrift on a Lonely Sea

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

* * *

_Chapter VII : Adrift on a lonely Sea … _

* * *

Wilde wasn't sure when last he'd glanced forward to check on the flooding but when he did, it was in time to watch the front of the Bridge slide silently under the water. Such was the list now that the Chief Officer was forced to put most of his weight on his right knee as he tried to keep his balance. Where before the crowds had been jovial, bemused and then worried now they pressed and pushed and panicked; begging for help or simply trying to force their way ahead in what little order remained on-board.

"Get back!" He shouted, shoving a man in the chest as he tried to push past Wilde towards the final davit-mounted lifeboat on the starboard side. The weight of numbers pushing forward gradually forced Henry back, until the heel of his left shoe pressed against the edge of the dip in the railings that allowed passengers to board the lifeboat. "Get back, damn you all!"

Chancing a glance behind himself, he saw room for only a few more souls aboard the boat. Using his forearm as a shield he stepped forward, literally driving three men back and one down onto the decking as he struggled to create enough room to find more to board. "Women and Children!" He cried, desperately searching. "Women and Children first! Stay back the rest of you, stay back damn you!"

With so many voices begging, pleading, screaming or crying, trying to hear anything of use was pointless. Tipping his head up he caught sight of a pair of arms holding a baby – no more than a few months old – aloft. "Make way!" Wilde shouted, shoving his hands into the crowd to try and part them. "Let her through! Let her through!"

The woman was soaked from heat to toe, teeth chattering as she squeezed between the baying, flexing bodies surrounding the davits. Her dark hair straggled and damp, she simply held the child out at arm's length towards the Chief Officer. "I've lost my boy," She sobbed, tears impossible to pick out from the freezing water splashed across her features. "I have to go back ..."

"I cannot hold this boat Madam!" Wilde shouted back, thrusting the flat of his palm against a man who tried to use the woman's suffering as a distraction to slip past, sending him back and into the arms of passengers behind. He fixed his gaze on the woman, Irish by the sound of her voice, painfully aware of being unable to help her in the slightest meaningful way. "I cannot hold this boat!"

"I understand," She nodded, urging Henry to take the child from her arms. "I couldn't live with myself without trying … I have to look, I have to ..."

Snatching a glance at the lifeboat and back he carefully took hold of the baby who, somehow, seemed fast asleep and blissfully unaware of the panic and disaster unfolding. "Will anyone take a child?" He questioned, planting a foot on the ledge and looking into the huddled, pathetic occupants of the boat. A stout, round man dressed in shirt and tails with a shock of white hair and a beard to match raised his hand, "Indeed! I'll take her, sir!"

Wilde took a single moment out of many to gaze at the peaceful serenity of the baby's features, wishing for a tiny slice of the calm born from pure innocence. His moment was just that however, a moment, as the voice of one of the sailors calling his name urgently filtered in. "Sir! Sir!"

Turning his head back towards the ship he saw the throng of passengers pushing in, almost to the point of forcing the crew tending to the lifeboat to step off the deck. Quickly handing the baby over to the volunteer and left with no other choice, Wilde reached into the folds of his overcoat and produced a revolver. Pulling back the firing hammer, he stretched an arm above his head and squeezed the trigger.

A loud bang echoed across the ship and out to sea, scattering the crowd back as some clutched their ears or simply fell onto their rumps in surprise. "Get back and stay back, damn you!" Wilde shouted, pulling the hammer back again and readying himself to fire again if necessary. When the scattered passengers did not immediately regroup and rush the davits, Henry turned his attention back to the Lifeboat. A small part of him noted with a greater sadness that the baby, hugged closely in the arms of the old gentleman, was crying and bawling.

Extending his own arms out to the sides, revolver still held in one hand, Wilde found his voice. "Left and right sides together, now! Ready! Lower away! Both sides together!"

* * *

On the port-side of Titanic, First Officer Murdoch struggle to keep his balance, legs bent as he leant over the edge of the railings to keep his eye on the Lifeboat now only a few feet from the top of the waves. Above the general din behind he could hear screaming, and from his position overhead he made out the passengers in the boat below shifting backwards suddenly. "Right side hold! Right side hold!" He bellowed, frantically gesturing.

Murdoch felt a hand against his back and almost fell forwards off the ship itself, saved only by the urge to reach out and take hold of the hooked davit as he lost his balance. A crewman from that side left his rope and pushed through the seething mass of people crowded around the lifeboat station, grabbing the First Officer by the collar of his overcoat and pulling him back aboard. Turning back towards the ship, he was accosted by dozens of faces and many more arms jostling and heaving.

"The boat's away!" Murdoch roared, pulling the revolver from his coat and making a very public action of checking the single unused shell still loaded in the breech. "There's nothing more here! Get back! Get back!"

Not yet brave or desperate enough to chance being shot, the passengers crowding around stepped back, still grumbling and crying, screaming and shouting. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the stinging pain from the sheen of sweat rolling down his features. Murdoch forced himself to focus on the task at hand, "Left side only!" He ordered. "Left only now! Lower away! Keep going! Left only!"

Blinking away the stinging sensation, he looked down over the hull. "Better! Both sides, now! Left and right, ready! Lower away together! Left and right!"

After a few more minutes of careful direction, the white bottom of the Lifeboat splashed softly into the North Atlantic. The sailors amongst the passengers leapt up and began decoupling the heavy lines that still linked them to the davits, reaching uselessly over the side of the Promenade Deck above.

Murdoch stepped back, sighing as he looked all along the port-side. Every lifeboat within the reach of the davits was away, leaving only two left on the entire ship; Collapsibles A and B – stowed on the roof of the Officers' Quarters and not within easy reach. Laughing absurdly to himself for a moment, he shook his head; as if anything had been remotely "easy" lately.

"You four!" He shouted, pointing a gloved hand towards a group of enlisted men making their way from further aft. "Stack up these timbers against the Officers' Quarters! Get that Collapsible onto the deck!"

The sailors nodded, busying themselves trying to build a ramp of sorts against the wall. While they struggled with heavy timbers and oars Murdoch walked towards the bow, stopping before a square gap in the decking that marked a staircase leading down to "B" Deck. Peering through the hatch, he saw the whole stairwell shimmering, underwater.

Backing away he drew on the last of his willpower, the last of his experience and training to suppress the terror, ignore the overwhelming desire to simply leap off the edge of the Promenade Deck and down into the icy waters to take his chances. "Quickly now!" He urged, finding his stride as he hurried over to help the sailors shift the heaviest timber up. "Quickly now, lads!"

* * *

The Laws of Physics provided evidence of the ship's list in each of the bottles, as they rested on the shelving that stretched across the infirmary wall and in various coloured liquids, remaining perfectly flat even as their containers tilted precariously. Anastacia plucked the miniature experiments in fluid behaviour from their shelves, setting them down on the nearest bed as she set about separating the compounds and elixirs.

There were no more patients to treat – those that could had long since heaved themselves back onto their feet and disappeared to take their chances above deck. A few figures lay slumped on mattresses, sheets drawn up over their features, but they would never again rise, having been taken to the next world long before the frigid cold of the North Atlantic ever had a chance to try. For a time the closest anyone had come to the infirmary was merely sprinting past the doorway, but there had been no footfalls or voices in quite some while.

Having no great desire to go down with a second ship, Anastacia picked up her pace; pulling open cupboards and sweeping boxes and jars into the scratchy, Hessian sack she dragged along the decking from one side of the infirmary to the other. She collected Bandages, ointments, balms, opiates, alcohol and anything that could be of use to those abandoned on the cold sea.

Overhead the ship's lighting momentarily flickered; bright white fading to dirty yellow and a sunset's orange before briefly submitting to blackness. Through the deck itself Anastacia could hear the distant creaking of steel, flexing and bending under some tremendous load. Blinking to restore her vision as the lighting returned, she hefted the sack over her shoulder and turned towards the doorway.

Anastacia was somewhat surprised to hear a clanking of leather-against-metal, the sound of heavy boots thudding against the deck. She was even more surprised, though rather pleasantly, when an intimately-familiar figure in a bulky life jacket skidded to a halt in front of the doorway. Puffing her tanned cheeks out as she struggled to catch her breath, Isabelle glanced up; a smile spreading across her face as she caught sight of the good Doctor. "I hope that's not White Star Line property you're liberating? A girl could get into a lot of trouble for that ..."

"I think we are already in a "lot of trouble"," Anastacia dead-panned, adding the slightest warmth to her voice as she slipped her own life jacket over her head. "I think it is time for us to go."

Taking the taller woman by the hand and leaning in for a kiss, Isabelle nodded as Anastacia's features flickered underneath the failing lights. Tugging the blonde on gently, she could feel the ship beginning to lose the fight it simply could not ever hope to win.

* * *

"Make ready to swing her out!" Chief Officer Wilde bellowed, grunting with effort as he helped ten or so sailors drag Collapsible A away from the Officer's Quarters, towards the davits needed to put the Lifeboat over the side of the ship and down to the sea. Gloved hands numb with the freezing chill of the air, he struggled to take hold of the thick lines blowing lazily in the wind. Gritting his teeth together, he forced his fingers to steady long enough to thread the rope through the pulleys mounted to the Lifeboat's tiny bow.

Wilde felt himself pushed back against the railings as a passenger, soaked through to his pallid skin, desperately climbed over the side of the decking and simply leapt for his life, down and into the calm sea to swim for somewhere – anywhere. All around men were making similar decisions, some throwing chairs or panels into the Atlantic before throwing themselves overboard. Still others did so without even a life jacket; driven to the limits of their reasoning, driven beyond common sense and deep into terror.

He noted with a strange detachedness that the passengers clustered around him – easily three times the number that could possibly hope to find a seat on the Collapsible – were no longer pushing, or jostling. They stood there, dumbly, eyes wide and jaws agape. They all stood transfixed on a single point behind the Chief Officer, and he very much feared to see it for himself.

An icy tingle cut through Henry, slicing at his ankles and feet. Reluctantly he glanced down, watching the sea lap against his shining black shoes as it climbed ever upwards. Craning his head around to look over the ship's starboard side, he could see that the water was now virtually level with the forward half of the Promenade Deck.

They were out of time.

"Forget the lines!" He ordered, waving his hands across his chest. "Roll her overboard! Roll the boat into the water!"

Snatching up a life jacket hanging over the railings nearby and slipping it over his head, Wilde quickly pulled the tiers around his waist and into a knot. Leaning down on one knee, into water so cold that he felt as if his shins were freezing solid, Henry forced his fingers under the rim of Collapsible A's starboard side. "Turn this boat over!" He urged with every last fibre of authority, every last decibel of professionalism. "Turn it over! Turn it over!"

The sailors and officer grunted with the effort, made that much harder by the sea now reaching their knees and pushing down on the Lifeboat's upturned hull itself. With a final great heave one side of the Collapsible reared up, the frantic pulling becoming an easier matter of concentrated pushing. "Push!" Wilde ordered, "Push her over!"

Finally giving in to the desperation and determination, Collapsible A rolled over and became a sea-going boat once more. With the bow of the ship now beginning to disappear into the murkier depths, the flood water passing his thighs, Wilde used the edge of the Lifeboat to pull himself further aft. "Get them into the boat! Get them in!"

Stretching a hand out towards a young woman clinging onto a ventilation pipe, Henry took a hold of her shivering arm and hauled her through the waist-deep water towards the Lifeboat. She took a hold of the edge of the hull but seemed unable to get any further, sniffing and sobbing as she simply clung on. "You must climb Madam!" He shouted, gesturing with an arm. "Get into the boat!"

She shook her head, pressing her face against the white-painted wood, all strength lost to the North Atlantic before it had even made her hair wet. Sucking in a great breath of air, Wilde dived underneath the water and very nearly lost all said air from his lungs at the cold; the indescribable chill that turned the blood in his veins to a crimson slush. Pressing his palms upwards he gave the sobbing woman an extra few feet of height, enough so she could scramble over the Lifeboat's edge and roll into the hull.

Wilde broke the surface, gasping for his very life. As the Promenade Deck slipped below the surrounding seas poured in, supplementing the ocean leaking in from the damaged hull beneath as Henry felt his feet leave the decking. With all his strength he swam, arms thrashing and legs kicking as he desperately tried to get closer to the Lifeboat as it very gently began to drift away from the ship. The pull of the North Atlantic easily defeated one man however, irrespective of his rank or privilege and Titanic's Chief Officer felt himself tugged away from Collapsible A and out into the greater water.

Henry Wilde glanced up into the starry sky; shivering, cold. There was nothing more he could do – for his ship, his passengers, his crew or himself.

* * *

Isabelle's pace as she worked forwards towards the bow was slowed not only by Anastacia, who could run only as quickly as her prosthetic would allow, but also the throng of passengers sprinting in the opposite direction. She jerked to the side, avoiding a man dressed in a purser's jacket as he tripped on a bollard and fell to the decking with a painful thud. Her gaze was stolen from negotiating the tricky crowds to watch water spill up from the stairwell hatches, the height between the ship's deck and the ocean outside shrinking with each step.

Gritting her teeth, Anastacia ignored the terrible pain that arced through her left leg with each heavy step in their dash. The straps holding her prosthetic could only be so tight or risk pressure sores against what remained of the knee, and so each step led the wood to snap back up against the flesh, hammering it relentlessly.

Her pace never slowed however; she had no intention of being a burden on Isabelle. Mostly guided by the Stoker in front, who tugged her by the arm left or right to avoid obstructions, Anastacia was able to better take in the terror and panic unfolding around. She watched passengers making the agonising decision – to jump now, or risk being drowned by the seas when the ship finally slipped below the waves. She watched mothers with children who had never made it to a lifeboat, trying to quieten the tears with fantastical stories, distracting them from the terrible fate that almost certainly awaited them when the deck beneath their feet became awash.

Anastacia crashed chest-first into the back of Isabelle as the latter ground to a halt, almost falling to the decking except for a passing gentleman who caught her in his arms, set her back up and then promptly continued his dash towards the ship's stern. Shaking her head of the stars she could see, she leant over the other woman's shoulder to see what had brought them to such a sudden stop.

The North Atlantic itself had brought them to a sudden stop. From where they stood as far forwards the all-but-invisible horizon, the ship surrendered to the sea. Sections of the superstructure still climbed high and clear but the deck itself went no further.

"I can see a boat near the Officers' Quarters," Isabelle shouted, gesturing with a finger further forwards. "The bow's under … There's only one way to reach it."

Gathering up the material of her dress in her hands, Anastacia gave the fingers she still held a tight squeeze but said nothing more. Relinquishing her hold on Isabelle, she stepped forwards and waded into the ocean itself. While her skin contracted so tightly it could well have exposed the bone, her face showed not a single flicker of movement. Distant memories provided the experience, the understanding of what lay ahead. She would not flinch.

Isabelle was not quite so stoic, rubbing her hands together as she glanced at the some hundred feet between herself and the Officers' Quarters. Brushing a handful of hair away from her features and back behind an ear, she snatched up the Hessian sack lying on the deck and threw it over her shoulders. Trying to control her breathing, Isabelle focused on the white shape in the distance that meant the difference between being cast adrift on the sea and remaining trapped in it.

As Anastacia stepped past her and into the water, a decision with no real alternative was made.

* * *

William Murdoch, First Officer of the rapidly disappearing RMS Titanic watched in horror as the timbers and oars – supporting Collapsible B's gentle slide from the ceiling of the Officers' Quarters to the ship's deck – bowed under the tremendous weight of the boat, before finally giving way and snapping like dry reeds.

The white-painted hull flipped over and crashed to the deck, sending sailors scattering and some overboard as they instinctively dived to avoid being crushed. Splinters of wood were flung into the air, as the lifeboat cracked a rib along its width in the fall. As the waters soaked Murdoch's shoes and the very bottom of his trousers, a strange calm fell over him. As if time were slowing so that each second lasted a hundred times more, he was able to see the vowels being stressed on the lips of men and women surrounding as they cried for help, or simply cried.

Whatever slowed time for the First Officer held no such dominion over the sea and the water level quickly climbed above his knees, so that there was no hope of being able to get a strong enough grip to overturn Collapsible B. Sailors abandoned their posts around the beached lifeboat, frantically climbing aft to delay what was now inevitable. Glancing up Murdoch watched a man throw himself onto the support line anchoring the ship's forward-most funnel to the superstructure, rappelling down into the water beside him.

"Mister Lightoller," The First Officer nodded as his immediate junior waded over to join him. "I don't think there's much more to be done ..."

Ahead of both men, the overturned hull of Collapsible B began to float up off the deck now that enough water had flooded underneath to provide buoyancy. Throwing his arm over the keel, Murdoch dragged first himself up and then Lightoller as both men hung on for dear life. The upturned boat pitched violently, without any stability now she was sailing in a way never designed for.

"All boats on the port-side away Sir," The Second Officer managed, professional to the end even as he struggled to breathe anything other than the spray of the waves.

Both men pushed their faces against the lifeboat as a rolling swell washed over the Collapsible, threatening to overpower their tenuous hold on the smooth hull and scatter them to the sea. Murdoch coughed away the salt water, desperately trying to regain his bearings. The upturned boat they clung to was slowly but surely being carried away from the Titanic's port-forward side, while fully a third of the ship itself had now utterly disappeared beneath the waves.

"Can you see anyone else?" Murdoch shouted, his head scanning about the seas and over the top of the Collapsible. Lightoller narrowed his eyes, panning the surrounding waters. "None alive ..."

"Wait!" He cried, pushing himself further up the hull and leaning over. "There!" He pointed, gesturing with a hand. "Blonde, ten metres at three o'clock; do you see her?"

Straining his eyes, the First Officer found her – a lithe woman with long, thin arms that made increasingly weak strokes through the freezing water. Pushing himself away from the Collapsible, gritting his teeth as what little part of his skin still dry was dunked into the chill, he willed himself to swim towards her.

"I have another!" Lightoller shouted, diving into the sea from somewhere behind.

Anastacia had long stopped feeling pain, for even the capacity of her skin to register the cold had been stripped away. Now all that remained was a numbness, slowly eating its way through the last of her strength and sapping the power from her muscles. Each circle of her arms over her head was slower, weaker than the last; each kick of her legs increasingly aimless, without direction. She struggled to tilt her chin above the water and even when she could, her lungs seemed unwilling to take their fill.

All the memories of the sinking of the Borodino were useless, for her body could not "remember" how to survive; one simply did. The cramp was as terrible when suffered for the second time, the water filling her mouth with each kick forwards just as choking. She had come as far as she could go …

A strong hand interrupted, taking a hold of her arm and adding the power of a second set of legs to the effort. Anastacia was not so much helped as dragged through the North Atlantic, concentrating on simply keeping her head above the water. "Take a hold of the hull!" A voice urged; masculine, gruff, not one she found familiar and certainly not Irish …

Nonetheless she did as she was told, without the energy to argue or do anything other than provide her body with the chance to stop swimming. On the other side of Collapsible B an equally exhausted, disorientated stoker by the name of Isabelle Towers was forcibly dumped against the upturned boat by Lightoller. "There's a good girl!"

Murdoch grunted with the effort of pulling the blonde woman further up so she lay over the top of the hull, what little she weighed more than being compensated for by the terrible tiredness that made his mind numb and limbs heavy.

"There she goes …" The Second Officer breathed, as his eyes turning back towards the ship.

Like a great hand given all the power of God Almighty, the North Atlantic held the bow of the RMS Titanic in its frigid grasp and pulled it entirely beneath the rolling waves; great jets of spray billowing up from pockets of air trapped deep within the hull. As truly magnificent as the ship was, it could no more disobey the Laws of Physics than it could repel the water from its compartments, or simply fly away and be done with the bother. Still, she endured.

As her bow continued to sink her stern was forced to rise, so that enormous brass propellers were uncovered for the first time since Titanic had passed down the slipway of the Harland & Wolff shipyards in Belfast, on the final day of May the year before. Weighing over a hundred tons and still pointed hard over, hours after the stern had swung away from the fateful Iceberg on First Officer Murdoch's orders, the ship's rudder climbed high into the night sky.

Great torrents ran along the rudder, falling in plumes against her shining screws and tipping over their bronzed edges as waterfalls returning down to the sea. Otherwise impossible to read save for when the ship rested at harbour and a man could stand on the dockside and crane his head up, the words "RMS TITANIC", "LIVERPOOL" shone in gilded yellow for those lucky enough to find a lifeboat from which to read.

Sounding not unlike a gunshot, the steel cables anchoring the ship's forward-most funnel to the deck snapped under enormous tension, made all the worse by the pull of the sea. The frayed cabling lashed against the waves, slicing those swimming for their very lives in half and throwing up vast plumes of white spray. Without guide wires the enormous funnel, rising some sixty feet up into the air, teetered and began to fall – one side crushing in on itself and releasing great gouts of steam as the pipework crumpled.

Falling in an irresistible arc it plunged into the sea, crushing dozens and sending parallel waves that swamped those clinging to wreckage and debris or simply dragging them under the water, life jacket and all. Always eager to fill a void, the North Atlantic poured into the jagged hole in the ship's superstructure left behind; thousands of gallons of water falling into the heart of the Titanic's engines where they extinguished the last of the fires, finally silencing her shining pistons and mighty turbine. Still, she endured.

Delicately carved wooden angels, perched atop the banister of the winding Grand Staircase were ripped from their mountings by the fury of the sea; smashed against fine mahogany cowling which in itself was repeatedly battered, until it splintered and broke free of the ship's steel frame. Sculpted brass handles were bent and broken, as their doors were hauled free and torn into pieces by the tidal waves surging through the Titanic's corridors. All the tasteful décor; oil paintings, shag carpets, teak finishings, crystal chandeliers and fine bone china were squashed, upturned, shattered or simply exploded by the terrifying power of the Sea.

All across what remained of the ship above the waterline, lighting flickered as the last of the ocean liner's power reserves were drained, with no steam remaining to recharge them. The fine details of her Promenade Deck, along with the screaming and the desperate climbing across it, were plunged into repeating darkness. Higher the stern climbed, rowers in the lifeboats below frantically struggling, fighting to overcome ocean currents dragging them underneath the ship's impotent propellers.

Gravity made the North Atlantic a powerful ally, as it began to drag everything not bolted to the deck forwards. Such was the list that the Titanic would soon not so much appear a ship as resemble a skyscraper, as beds, dressers, tables, chairs and passengers were dragged across the decking with irresistible force. Still, she endured.

The most terrible rattling echoed through the ship, as metal tested and mathematically proven to withstand the most tremendous stresses was now asked to withstand the impossible. Rivets tasked originally to hold the panels of the hull together, was now tasked with holding the stern and everything in it to the rest of the ship – including the hundreds upon hundreds of souls who desperately clung to anything that could resist the fall towards the ocean below.

Almost to the point of having to use the steam pipes as a climbing frame, Chief Engineer Joseph Bell scrambled towards the vast bank of breakers that directed, controlled and distributed the ship's electricity to the hundreds of miles of wiring beyond. Grunting with the effort he desperately tried to pull himself further forwards, slipping on the cold metal as great showers of sparks threw themselves over the decking.

Voltages spiked as the ship's electrical systems coughed, choked and died; metal exploding outwards and vomiting their sensitive components into smoking, melted ruins. With a final, long sigh of discharging current the Titanic's lights flickered, pulsed and died – plunging the entire ship into nothing brighter than starlight from the skies above. Feeling his grip slipping Joseph pressed his forehead against the cool metal, thanking the ship in a mumble for all it had done … For it could do no more.

Tugged free by gravity or his climbing, Joseph's pocket watch spun frantically on the end of its chain. Reaching a trembling hand down, he snatched it up and held it tightly in his palm.

The steel of Titanic's hull had been forged in the fiercest fires of Glasgow, under the watchful eye of men with knowledge painstakingly gathered from decades of metallurgical experience. She was assembled by those same hands that had realised her sister ship, Olympic, from blueprints to shipyard and finally, revenue-generating service. One could not have found more reliability, more skill and more daring had they been given the chance to build Titanic anew and combed the entire world for the skill.

But it was not enough to resist the fury of the Sea, which could not be usurped and brooked no interference. The steel of her hull could not hope to withstand the strains placed upon it, even if it had been forged by Hephaestus – Ancient Greek God of weapons, technology and blacksmithing. With the most terrible screeching steel buckled, ruptured and sheared apart. Wood exploded into clouds of splinters, shattering under weight that could not be borne by metal ten times stronger. With a final heavy twisting, Titanic broke her back and was cleaved in two.

In a perverted re-enactment of her journey down the slipway of the Belfast Yard of Harland & Wolfe over a year before, the ship's stern came down to crash into the water. Enormous waves fully half the height of the Titanic again rolled to either side, swamping hundreds and drowning them instantly. Free save for a strip of the ship's keel still somehow attached, the entire bow aft of midship slid beneath the waves silently. Like a face dunked into freezing water for a panicked few seconds, the ship's gigantic rudder and screws were wet again only for a moment, before the stern was dragged upwards for one final time by the action of the bow as it sank.

She could endure no more, and so she died; back broken, glory lost and surviving passengers scattered; to drown, to freeze to death. The glory of Man was fleeting, and his technology was useless here in the cold nothingness of the North Atlantic. His mighty steam engines, his towering hull and his incredible wireless technology – that could send messages hundreds of miles away through the air itself – toys to be crushed by the waves.

Defaced in the canton with the Union Flag, the Blue Ensign of the Royal Navy Reserve continued to flutter upon the end of its Jack Staff. It continued to flap against the breeze, until the fabric became heavy and damp with water and it fell to cling against its pole. As the very top of said pole disappeared beneath the waves, so did the White Star Line's RMS Titanic disappear from the world of men who had given birth to her; plunging below the waves, falling into the thick silt and sand of the bottom of the sea having never cast her lines to the bollards of Pier Fifty Nine, New York City.


	8. Chapter VIII : Carpathia

_HYMN TO THE SEA …_

_Pairing : B'Elanna Torres / Seven of Nine_

_Rating : Mature (M)_

_Feedback : I took the time to write this, so give me the courtesy of writing back. :)_

* * *

_Chapter VIII : Carpathia … _

* * *

Isabelle was dead, she felt sure of it. Her final memories were vague, difficult to recall – like a veil drawn across a window she then tried to gaze through. There were snippets, though; she remembered the sound of stokers screaming, the dragging of ice-against-metal, the buckling of the hull and the spray of seawater rushing to fill compartments. She remembered passion – incredible passion – with a beautiful blonde, alabaster skin writhing at her touch …

She remembered Eamon, sealed to drown behind a steel door. Isabelle recalled the pumps, straining to hold back the entire North Atlantic. She remembered stepping into the cold ocean, struggling to haul the sack and then struggling to keep her chin above the water. Each breathe becoming harder, every sinew and muscle drained until it felt as if a few minutes' worth of swimming had been several hours. Isabelle remembered the screaming, the whispers of the dying and the bobbing, frozen corpses held upright by their life jackets.

She felt a strong hand pull her free of her death spiral, dragging her through the frigid water and then pulling Isabelle up unto salvation. Then she remembered nothing, until now; a strangely serene scene that could not possibly have come to pass unless she floated in some purgatory, awaiting God's judgement. With a great effort she lifted her head, peeking over the wooden rim that blocked her view of what lay beyond.

The Sun rose brightly to light a clear blue morning, on a sea as calm as if it were only painted onto a canvas. Clustered about each other lifeboats huddled with lines exchanged and bodies hugging, both themselves and each other. Everything seemed so bright, so disconnected that it must surely be the product of whatever passed for Limbo; whatever waiting place her soul was locked within until such time as a higher power chose to deliver its verdict. Wrapping her hands about herself, Isabelle shifted her weight and rolled over … only to come face-to-face with her angel.

Hesitantly reaching a shaking hand out, Isabelle ran her fingers down the achingly familiar features. The scar that ran over the eye, the scar that spread in a star burst beneath her ear and the bright blue eyes shut away behind heavy lids – all felt her caress as she struggled to understand. Leaning towards the blonde, Isabelle could feel the soft touch of breath on her cheek. Anastacia tilted her head, leaning into the touch of Isabelle's fingertips. How could she be here? Why would she be here? Unless …

"How are you feeling, Sailor?" A clipped, English voice questioned from somewhere above her. Struggling to sit up and feeling all the worse for trying it, she settled on pulling the blanket wrapped around her down and just about lifting her head up from the ledge it rested on.

"Beg your pardon, Sir?" Isabelle mumbled, recognising the Titanic's Second Officer. Shifting in his seat, his face pale and gaunt, Lightoller glanced down at the two women laid side-by-side. "A difficult night ..." He sighed, fold his hands together. "Good to see you made it through."

Isabelle grunted, forcing herself up a little higher. "Don't remember how I got here, Sir ..."

"Pulled you onto Collapsible B myself," He shrugged. Staring out across the sea, the Officer's eyes became fixed, more distant. "Mister Murdoch rescued your companion, there. We clung to the upturned hull for quite a while, until Mister Lowe rendezvoused with a lifeboat that floated the right way up ..."

Isabelle glanced around but save a handful of other enlisted men could see no other officer on-board, let alone the Titanic's First Officer. Catching her search Lightoller sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "Mister Murdoch was lost before we were picked up by Mister Lowe. He didn't survive the night ..."

Allowing the sadness on his face to lie for a moment, the ship's senior-most surviving officer climbed to his feet, running a hand through his damp hair as he scanned the horizon. "Let's have your life jackets in, gentleman," He announced suddenly. "It looks as if our Angel's arrived ..."

Craning her neck and succeeding only in being rewarded with a wave of dizziness, Isabelle allowed her head to sink back to the floor of the Lifeboat. Rolling her eyes shut she tried to focus on the simple appreciation of having survived and not, as her mind so very much desired, on those who had been lost to a cold and lonely sea. Turning her head away, she felt the tears roll free of their prison and travel along her cheeks, splashing down against the spray-soaked wood.

Isabelle shivered as she felt her blanket lifted up, admitting a breeze blowing from the waves that chilled her clammy flesh. The cold was instantly forgotten, however, as a slender hand slipped over hers and squeezed tightly. She felt a lithe body pressing against hers, transferring heat despite the barrier of the blankets between them. Isabelle shuddered as she felt a warm breath against her ear, a pair of soft lips dancing against her temple and across to steal a tear.

"I thought I was dead ..." She whispered. "It all felt like a dream."

Anastacia rested her chin in the nape of the other woman's neck, interlacing the fingers of her hand with Isabelle's. She said nothing, at first, ignoring the men surrounding as they began to pull off their damp, torn life jackets and stack them up in the centre of the boat. Unable to resist the urge any longer, Isabelle shifted until she lay face-to-face with the blonde. A smile curled her lips upwards as she felt herself lost in the cobalt gaze opposite – a gaze she'd worried would never be seen again outside of such dreams.

Slowly, the distance closed until their lips came together. Oblivious to the world, they were especially oblivious to Charles Lightoller who – in an example of fine professionalism and the very best standards of gentlemanly conduct – pretended he saw nothing as he reached over the women, pulled open the storage crate nestled between and removed a pair of wrapped flares.

After a time, Isabelle broke away and brought her shivering free hand up to cup the side of Anastacia's face. Running her fingers through long, blonde tresses as she felt her breath come in shuddering heaves, the raw emotion of all that had come before demanding a release of some sort from the prison of her self-control. "I want to build something with you, Anna. I want you to see yourself like I see you, I want you to help me realise what it is I want to be. I want to grow so very, very old with you but never feel the age in my heart …"

"That depends," Anatacia replied cryptically, earning a deep frown from the woman opposite. "Depends on what?"

The blonde leaned inwards, until her lips almost grazed Isablle's. " … On whether you are still dreaming."

Pushing her head forward and capturing Anastacia in a searing kiss, Isabelle shrugged her shoulders as she pulled away. "If I am … I never want to wake up."

"That would deny me the pleasure of waking up next to you each morning," Anastacia countered, the scar above her eye climbing up towards her forehead. Isabelle smiled, pouting her lips as she pretended to give the matter some thought. "Suppose it depends on how long you're planning on waking up next to me for ..."

"Ladies and gentleman!" Lightoller shouted loudly above Isabelle, gathering everyone's immediate attention with the urgency in his voice. "I would ask you to prepare to disembark!"

Craning her head around distractedly, Anastacia's attention was stolen by the smooth black hull that churned and forced the waters of the North Atlantic aside as it steamed furiously towards their huddled boats. With a single red funnel rising up from a compact, two-storey superstructure she sent smoke billowing outwards and stretching far beyond the stern of the ship, in a long streak that dirtied the sky.

The lifeboat bobbed and tipped in the wake but the helmsman of their coming salvation was skilled, and the small liner came to a prompt enough halt without there ever being a danger of swamping the collected boats. Tilting her head even further back, Anastacia was able to lend a name to the ship that would finally bring an end to the terrible events of the night before – the RMS Carpathia.

Igniting the flares, Lightoller held them above his head and crossed his arms. The relief on his face was palpable, and it spread to the other passengers aboard but there was still work to be done; Logistics to be satisfied, equipment to stow and secure …

Good colleagues and friends to mourn too.

* * *

Anastacia accepted the first hot mug, handing it to Isabelle who offered a smile to the young Officer who, despite having been pressed from the highly-demanding duties of the Bridge to the slightly-less complex world of Pursing, returned it with one of his own. Lowering the tray for the blonde to accept one for herself, he quickly moved on to the next passengers still huddled in their blankets.

All around, the spectrum of humanity played out. There was grief, of course – terrible grief. Some sat facing the sea, faces frozen still and eyes locked against the waves as if somehow, they could see through to where Titanic rested and would now sleep for all time. Others sobbed openly, such were the tears that they ran between the fingers clamped over their features. They cried because the steel could not sob, and the water would never weep for the souls lost beneath it. They cried over fifteen hundred tears, one for each of those that never survived to see Carpathia come to save them all.

Perhaps they cried for the great ship herself who as a mere work of men, could not hold on forever, was forced to kneel before the might of the North Atlantic and have her back broken before anything could be done to save her. She sat far below, and in time the sea would consume her and there would be nothing save memories by which to recall her by.

Still, that time was not for many, many decades. Her steel would fight on and Nature would not take her so easily all over again.

Amongst the sadness, there was joy – Unbridled, euphoric joy as children found mothers, and husbands found wives. Friends almost crushed the life from friends in great hugs of pure emotion, tears of happiness not sorrow rolling down their faces. Not many met again, but a few did and so long as there was a tale of survival to tell amongst the terrible pain and loss, then hope would live on somehow.

Glancing across to the ship's port side, Anastacia saw a vaguely familiar face; a young man she recalled seeing on the Titanic's Promenade Deck a day after the ship's departure from Southampton. She watched him make his way to the railings running around the Carpathia, watched him reach into his overalls and pull a rag from a pocket. Hooking his arm about the railing, he leaned over and began to polish the metal. His face was pale, gaunt and he took great labouring breaths but on he worked, finding comfort in the bosom of routine; doing what he had been trained to do, expected to do even though anyone who still expected such had gone down with his ship and fellow crew.

Pulling Isabelle in, Anastacia held the other woman's lips in her own for a few moments, enjoying the closeness. As they parted, Isabelle's attention was seized by the sight of the Titanic's surviving officers as they made their way onto the Promenade Deck. Dressed in shining buttons and the dark-blue of uniforms borrowed from fellow deck officers of the Carpathia, they all stood to attention by the ship's starboard side.

Charles Lightoller, ship's Second Officer. Herbert Pitman, ship's Third Officer. Joseph Boxhall, ship's Fourth Officer and Harold Lowe, ship's Fifth Officer. As one they raised their arms to salute, eyes cast down towards the deep and timeless sea that had claimed their ship and their colleagues who could not stand with them.

Captain Edward Smith, Chief Officer Henry Wilde, First Officer William Murdoch and Sixth Officer James Moody. They along with the passengers and crew lost, would never be forgotten in all the long years left to some and the shorter time allotted to others.

Isabelle swallowed down on her tears, squeezing the pale hand held in hers tightly. Her own thoughts turned to the ship's Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell and all the stokers and greasers she'd shared an engine room with over Titanic's tragically short life. She thought of Eamon, his reputation as the ship's greatest drinker and the advice given over lumpy potato that brought an absurd smile to her face. She even spared a thought for Lieutenant Crawford, a man she had held no regard for at all in life who nonetheless, deserved her respect in death.

Anastacia leaned in, turning her head so as to present her lips to the other woman's ear as she watched the gathered officers, deep in thought. "I love you."

Isabelle, turned towards the lips and met them with her own, her eyes rolling closed. When it came time to part, for breath, the words had no time to waste for oxygen or the need of her lungs. "I love you too."

"Excuse me ladies," A portly officer holding a clipboard interrupted with an apologetic smile. "I'll need your names, for the manifest, if you please?"

"Anastacia Towers," The blonde replied in a heartbeat, without a moment's hesitation. The round-faced man nodded, making a scribble on the paper he held. Smiling widely, the other woman took a moment to map the graceful, alabaster features opposite. Cocking her head to the side, Anastacia frowned, "Do you need my help already?"

"Isabelle Towers," The Stoker replied with a roll of her eyes and the same smile on her lips. The Officer nodded, took note and excused himself politely. Anastacia picked up the hot mug she held between her blanketed thighs and brought it to her lips, taking a moment to feel the steam tickle her cheeks as it wafted up and away. "Ask me again ..."

Reaching for her own mug, Isabelle frowned, "Ask you what?"

"Ask me for how long I am planning to wake up next to you," She replied, taking a sip of the sweet tea. Isabelle did likewise, setting it back down on the deck as she took the blonde's hand into her lap. "Okay – for how long're you planning on waking up next to me?"

Anastacia looked out across the starboard side of the RMS Carpathia as it began to steam east, taking up Titanic's torch from failing hands and completing the final leg of the journey the Ship of Dreams was never able to see through. Although it still lay many, many miles away Anastacia imagined that she could see the Statue of Liberty standing in welcome, her arm extended in friendship to those tired, huddled masses yearning for freedom.

She truly did stand at the gate of a new world, a final frontier in more ways than merely political, or geographical.

"Forever ..." The taller woman whispered eventually, squeezing the hand in hers tightly. Isabelle nodded and settled down, her head resting against the swell of Anastacia's chest.

She would have it no other way.

* * *

**The End.**

**Dedicated to the memory of the RMS Titanic, her passengers, her crew and all those lost to the deep and timeless sea …**


End file.
